Kudos to Anchor Bay yet again for doing the right thing and giving the fans what they want. Seriously, if it wasn’t for that company, very few of us westerners would be exposed to foreign horror. AB are no strangers to the world of Dario Argento, having released the best versions of his best films. Suspiria, Opera, Deep Red, just to name a few. It’s nice to see that Argento’s newer films are getting the same love on DVD as his older work.

The Card Player focuses on a female police detective who is forced in to a game of online poker by a deranged serial killer. The masked killer has been kidnapping young women and threatening to kill them if the detective refuses to play, or plays and loses. In a sick addition to the rules, every hand that the detective loses results in the killer amputating off a part of his hostage. The detective discovers a young talented poker player at a local club and recruits him in to playing against the very skilled killer. It becomes a bizarre mystery as to who the killer is, what he or she wants and who the next hostage might be.

This is some what traditional Argento fair because it reflects the same themes and story arches of his other films. A lone deranged killer hunting down young women, and a man and woman at odds who have to work together to track the killer down. Much in the spirit of Deep Red.

I have to admit that I haven’t seen a lot of the newer Argento films simply because they have mostly flown under the radar. The Card Player, though clearly an Argento film, has some new elements that some purists might not like but I think work fine in the current generation of cinema. For example, the cinematography is pretty modern and contemporary, there aren’t any hard reds or blues like in Suspiria and everything just looks very updated. I like this new look because it’s subtle and works as a nice mixture of the old and the new. Regardless, any fan of Argento will recognize the camera angles and shots for the most part.

One issue I had with The Card Player is that I simply do not like poker and I have never played it. If you are in the same boat as me, then you might find some of the scenes in the movie to be confusing as opposed to tense. I’m talking specifically about the lengthy poker sequences in the police station against the killer. Though this is a minor issue and one that doesn’t really lay claim on poor filmmaking but rather ignorance on the audiences’ part, it’s simply more of a nuisance than a flaw.

This is one of the lesser gory flicks from Argento but one that sticks more to style than elaborate death scenes. That said, there are still some visceral scenes to behold such as the ending (that’s all I can say) and close ups of the bloated corpse that was one of the killers victims.

Performances are all good with the occasional corny dialogue and poorly delivered lines. Those not flawless, the acting is light years ahead of so many other horror films. Though there is the trademark English dubbing that is apparent in a lot of Argento’s movies, something you either have grown to love or hate.

Like most Anchor Bay DVDs this one has got the goods and surprisingly so for relatively unknown movie such as this. You’ve got the standard director bio, trailers and so on which act more as filler but it’s good to see them in there. Then you have a nice interview with Argento about the film which is insightful and interesting as always. Plus a couple of behind the scenes montages of the film which are fun to watch, more so for people in to filmmaking. There is a nice interview with former Goblin member, Claudio Simonetti which is great as he goes though his history with Dario and how he began scoring his films. Then you’ve got a commentary by author Alan Jones who wrote Profondo Argento, a book I own and am anxious to start reading.

The Card Player is a pretty simple and straight forward horror mystery with some cool twists thrown in for good measure. If you are a fan of Argento’s then it’s definitely worth adding to your collection. If you have never seen an Argento film, or any Giallo horror for that matter than I still recommend checking this out.

-Mark Masoumi