Deep Red

Deep Red
Directed by	Dario Argento
Produced by	Claudio Argento Salvatore Argento
Written by	Dario Argento Bernardino Zapponi
Starring	Macha Meril David Hemmings Daria Nicolodi Gabriele Lavia Giuliana Calandra Glauco Mauri Clara Calamai Piero Mazzinghi
Music by	Goblin Giorgio Gaslini
Cinematography	Luigi Kuveiller
Edited by	Franco Fraticelli
Production company	Rizzoli Film Seda Spettacoli
Release date	7 March 1975 (Italy)
Running time	126 minutes
Country	Italy
Language	Italian
Box office	₤3,709,723,000 (Italy) $629,903 (United States)

Deep Red (original title Profondo rosso; also known as The Hatchet Murders) is a 1975 Italian giallo film, directed by Dario Argento and co-written by Argento and Bernardino Zapponi. It was released on 7 March 1975. It was produced by Claudio and Salvatore Argento, and the film's score was composed and performed by Goblin. It stars Macha Meril as a medium and David Hemmings as a man who investigates a series of murders performed by a mysterious figure wearing black leather gloves. Argento later opened a retail movie memorabilia store in Rome called Profondo rosso, operated for years by his long-time associate Luigi Cozzi.

Two shadowy figures struggle until one of them is stabbed to death while a child's scream is heard.

In the city of Rome, psychic medium Helga Ulmann (Macha Méril) holds a lecture in a theater where she senses that there's someone with a twisted and violent mind in the audience that she cannot clearly identify. Later that night, while Ulmann is in her apartment taking notes about the incident in the theater, someone kicks the door in and murders her with a meat cleaver, also destroying her notes in the process. Musician Marcus Daly (David Hemmings), who lives in the same apartment building is walking home when he sees her being attacked through the window. Rushing inside to help, he's too late as Helga bleeds to death.

After the police arrive, Marcus realizes he had seen a certain painting among a group of portraits on the walls of the victim's apartment, which seems to have disappeared. Helga's is prefaced by a child's doggerel tune, which serves as the murderer's calling card. Marcus hears it in his own apartment soon after becoming involved in the case, and is able to foil the murderer by locking himself in his study. Later, he plays the tune to Professor Giordani (Glauco Mauri), a psychiatrist who theorizes that the music is important because it probably played an integral part in a traumatic event in the killer's past. Another friend of Ulmann tells him about a folktale involving a haunted house in which a singing child is heard, followed by the shrieking of someone being murdered.