It starts off alarming. A hooker and Daria Nicolodi lookalike accidentally get her hands on some private properties (won't mention what) belonging to a client who is also a mad killer. The killer now phone her up as she is on a train home (no, he don't ask her about her favorite scary movie), because he wants his stuff back. Obviously he is also on the train and he slaughters the hooker brutally as well as her friend who has come to the station to meet her. The police arrives, end of first reel. I didn't like this sequence. It's oddly parodic in tone and unnecessary dragged-out (over 15 minutes), as if to torture the poor woman (and the viewer) as much as possible. It almost comes across as someone doing a parody of Argento. Worse yet, the actress in it is so bad your hair stands on end. What's the deal with Argento and women anyway? Well, we'll take that another time.

The story continues eventually. The killings are reminding retired detective Moretti (Max Von Sydow) of a case he worked on 17 years ago, "the "Dwarf killings", committed by a dwarf obsessed with children's rhymery. However, the killings stopped when the suposed dwarf-killer was found dead with a bullet in his head. So is it a copy-cat killer now at work? Or is the dwarf-killer back from his grave? Moretti decides to take up his investigation again with the help of a young man (Stefano Dionisi) whose mother was once killed by the dwarf.

Sleepless has routinely been called a return to form, but this time, knock on wood, it is justified. Apart from the omnious opening described above Argento manage to hold my interest throughout the story, especially during the last half hour which is pretty exciting. That definitely didn't happen during his last three films. The tension is nicely built and intensified to an ending which comes with a head-explosion so good you have to rewind immediately to see how the hell they pulled that off. My compliments to fx-wizard Sergio Stivaletti, almost the best head-explosion since Scanners. In general, the shock scenes, the killings, in Sleepless are very effective, not to mention quite offensive. Especially a flashback scene where the anonymeous killer literally stuffs a clarinet down a woman's throat. Not a nice sight.

Another positive thing that strucked me is that in comparison to his old films Argento is a much better writer of characters today. Like Stendahl before it Sleepless is more character-driven than we're used to, only here Argento manages to come up with some characters that are not totally uninteresting and made of cardboard. The part of Moretti is especially well developed, undeniably much due to having Max Von Sydow playing the part. Von Sydow gives his character, and everybody around him, a heartfelt credibility and well-needed substance that, for instance, previous Argento leading eldermen such as Donald Pleasence (Phenomena) just don't have in them. Hard-assed veteran Paolo Maria Scalaondro (once in 2019: After the Fall of New York) is also exellent as the police commisioner. Among the main ensemble only a horribly dubbed Roberto Sibetti is really awkward, while the insignificant Chiara Caselli as the hero's girlfriend makes you wish the more colorful Asia Argento was available after all.

All in all, Sleepless is a film which benefits from repetive viewings. I found it to work much better the second time I watched it (maybe because I skipped the opening then). It's probably Argento's best work since Opera. If only because he's doing what he does best and sticks to it. Nothing less, not an inch more, but it's enough for now.

© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.