La porta sul buio

4 Stars After Averaging the 4 Episodes

The highlight here is the episode Testimone oculare (Eyewitness) which is easily a 6 star experience. The lead witnesses a murder while driving at night, but the body goes missing when the police investigate. She is stalked. It's suspenseful and has some genuinely creepy moments.

The worst of this bunch is La bambola (The Doll). This was a very slow episode with long scenes of people just walking around the city. I didn't care about the characters or the story. I gave that episode 2 stars.

The other two episodes fell in between these two and were pretty average and skipable. Overall the Door into Darkness was disappointing compared to Argento's other achievements around this time in his career.

In this short-lived attempt at a sort-of Italian Twilight Zone, Dario Argento introduces four middle-length (around 55 minutes) Giallo-Lite tales of murder and madness, some of which he wrote or directed. "Il Tram" is certainly original, and wow is Paola Tedesco beautiful! "Il Vicino Di Casa" is well-done on a miniature scale, if extremely slow-moving. "La Bambola" has some very good camerawork & editing, plus Mara Venier's extraordinary eyes, but Argento himself pretty much spoils the final twist in his introduction! "Testimone Oculare" is probably the best of the four stories, or at least the most unpredictable; tense and well-directed, it features another great Italian beauty, Marilu Tolo. I'd give **1/2 out of 4 to the first three episodes and *** out of 4 to the last one.

Door into Darkness (1973) is an Argento television series he released in the 70s to piss off the Italian government and test the limits of television executives. He accomplished both. The series is made up of four separate short stories, of which Argento produced all four and wrote and directed two. The other two are directed by Luigi Cozzi (Starcrash and Contamination) and Mario Foglietti.

The storylines are more psychological thrillers and the kills are scaled way back from traditional Argento projects. Some of the concepts are more creative than others with several having great twists at the end.

Overall, this was more boring and bland than I anticipated but I still enjoyed Argento's opening narrations and occasional appearances in the films. I would score this a 5.5/10 and recommend seeing it once.