Garish colour effects, dodgy dialogue … who’s heading for a breakdown first, Argento’s haunted artist or the audience?
It might be something of a surprise to see a new movie starring Asia Argento, a leading figure in the #MeToo movement; Agony, directed by Argento’s ex-husband Michele Civetta, was actually completed in 2017.
This atmospheric film hovers somewhere between a gothic horror and a giallo. Isidora (Argento) is a tightly wound Italian artist living in
New York with her husband and young daughter. Plagued by strange visions of an occult ceremony, Isidora continues to unravel when she discovers that her mother, whom she believes is long dead, only passed away recently and has left her a vast estate in Tuscany. Isidora confronts her father, who confesses that he shielded her from the truth because of her mother’s debilitating mental illness. Isidora, along with her family, heads to the estate to oversee her mother’s funeral, and she is haunted by the image of a lady in red and begins to lose her grip on reality.