Inferno(1980)
1980 · Dario Argento · 107 min
A young man returns from Rome to his sister's satanic New York apartment house.
Horror · Thriller
6.6689 votes
TMDB score
3/5
Intensity
3/5
Gore
3/5
Stays with you
How Inferno scares
Watching this feels like sinking into a fever dream where logic stops mattering and only color, sound, and dread remain. The pace is slow and hypnotic, built more on strange imagery and unease than on jump scares, so patience is rewarded more than nerves. Blood shows up in sudden, stylish bursts rather than constant violence, and the overall threat is witchy and occult rather than anything grounded in the real world. It's a good pick for someone who likes horror as a strange, artsy mood piece rather than a straightforward scare machine.
On The Horror Database's 0–5 scare profile, Inferno rates psychological 4/5, visceral 2/5, gore 3/5, lingering effect 3/5, and overall intensity 3/5.
- Psychological: 4 of 5
- Visceral: 2 of 5
- Gore: 3 of 5
- Lingering: 3 of 5
- Intensity: 3 of 5
Slow burn vs Jump scares: 15 of 100 — leans Slow burn
Supernatural vs Real-world: 10 of 100 — leans Supernatural
Fun-scary vs Disturbing: 60 of 100 — leans Disturbing
Intensity over runtime
Shape only — no eventsReveal pacing shapeHide pacing shapeHidden by default — shows where the tension peaks and lets up.
A dreamy, slow-drifting haunted-house mood piece that suddenly stabs into sharp bursts of violence, then settles again until a feverish, intense final stretch.
Intensity across the runtime, 0 to 100: 1, 2, 3, 2, 4, 3, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5.
How scary is Inferno?
On The Horror Database's 0–5 intensity scale, Inferno rates 3/5 — solidly scary, building its fear through slow-burn dread rather than shocks. The fear is mostly in your head — it unsettles far more than it assaults. Expect it to be moderately gory and genuinely disturbing. Some of it will follow you to bed, but it lets go within a day or so.
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