Deep Red

In 1956, during Christmas at a family home, an unseen figure stabs another to death. A bloody knife falls to the floor at the feet of a child. Twenty years later, Professor Giordani chairs a parapsychology conference featuring psychic medium Helga Ulmann. Helga is suddenly overwhelmed by the "twisted, perverted, murderous" thoughts of someone in the audience. Speaking later with Giordani, Helga says she believes she can identify this person, unaware that someone is listening from the shadows. Later that night, a black-gloved figure invades Helga's apartment and kills her with a meat cleaver. English Jazz pianist Marcus Daly sees the murder from the window as he passes by and rushes to her apartment, finding her mutilated corpse. After the police arrive, Marcus thinks one of the apartment's paintings has disappeared, but he cannot pinpoint what exactly is missing. The media identifies Marcus as the eyewitness and shows reporter Gianna Brezzi's photo of him. The next morning, Marcus visits the home of his heavy-drinking friend, Carlo, but only finds Carlo's eccentric mother Martha, who seems interested in Marcus. That night, the killer plays a recording of a child's song outside Marcus's door; he manages to lock the door before the person can enter, but he hears the gruff whisper, "I'll kill you sooner or later." Feeling guilty for endangering him by taking his photo, Gianna begins helping Marcus investigate. Marcus tells Giordani, whom he met at Helga's funeral, about the encounter. Giordani, noting that Helga also mentioned hearing child's song during her vision, recalls a book of modern folklore describing a local haunted house where a child's song is sometimes heard. Marcus finds the folklore book at the library. He rips out a picture of the house and plans to learn more by visiting the book's author, Amanda Righetti. However, the killer, who has been watching Marcus, attacks Amanda and drowns her in scalding water before Marcus arrives. Marcus uses the photo from the book to find the huge, abandoned house. Under sheetrock he uncovers a disturbing mural: a child holding a bloody knife over a dead body. After he leaves, a loose chunk of sheetrock falls away, revealing another figure in the drawing. Meanwhile, Giordani, who has been assisting Marcus's investigation, is murdered by the killer after being distracted by a large mechanized doll. Villa Scott, "The House of the Screaming Child" in the film Continuing his search of the abandoned house, Marcus finds a walled-off room. In the middle of the dusty floor sits a desiccated corpse. Someone knocks Marcus unconscious as he backs away in horror. He awakens outside the house, which is burning. Gianna appears, explaining that she got his message about investigating the house and arrived in time to save him. Marcus and Gianna wait for the police in the house of the caretaker, whose daughter has drawn a picture identical to the hidden mural Marcus found in the house. She tells him she saw the picture in the archives of the local school. Marcus and Gianna immediately go to the school and find the picture, which proves to be the childhood work of Marcus's friend Carlo. Gianna leaves to call the police and encounters Carlo, who stabs her. Pursued by Marcus and the police, Carlo runs into the dark street and is hit by a garbage truck, which snags his clothing and drags him until an oncoming car runs over his head. Gianna is hospitalized and survives the stabbing. Marcus remembers that on the night of Helga's murder he met an utterly intoxicated Carlo coming from a different direction than the killing, meaning that Carlo couldn't have been the killer. Returning to Helga's apartment, Marcus has an epiphany: the supposed painting he saw on the night of the murder, and was subsequently unable to find, was really the killer's reflection in a mirror. As Marcus realizes he saw Martha, Carlo's mother, she appears behind him with a meat cleaver. Martha explains that after her husband said he would re-commit her to an insane asylum, she murdered him in front of the young Carlo. She walled off the room containing his body. Carlo, scarred psychologically, compulsively drew the scene as a youth and as an adult tried to repress the memory of the homicide with alcohol: he attacked Marcus and Gianna to protect his murderous mother from their investigation. Martha attacks Marcus and wounds him with the cleaver. After Martha's necklace tangles in the bars of the building's elevator, Marcus sends the elevator down, decapitating her.