The Stendhal Syndrome

A morbid thriller by Italian horror icon Dario Argento, this isn't a return to the baroque heights of OPERA and TENEBRAE. But it's a must-see for Argento completists, driven by a brave and disturbing performance by the director's daughter, Asia, as a police detective tormented by a serial sex killer. Acting on a tip, Rome-based Inspector Anna Manni (Asia Argento) pays a visit to Florence's Uffizi gallery, where she feels suddenly dizzy; she hears murmuring voices, hallucinates diving into a painted seascape and finally drops to the floor in a dead faint. Anna has succumbed to the Stendhal syndrome, a little-known affliction triggered by exposure to great works of a...