Profondo Rosso

My husband is a big horror fan and was super psyched to find out that Dario Argento, the Italian horror director, had a shop and museum in Rome. Of course, we HAD to go check it out.
The store itself is nothing really special. There are lots of DVDs of Argento’s films as well as many cool (and pricey) movie geek books on Italian horror films (with a small shelf of books in English). There are a handful of Argento movie posters and some badly screenprinted t-​shirts (priced at 30 Euros each, yikes)! Most of the store is a disappointment — lots of U.S. imported pre-​packaged Walmart style Halloween costumes (so bizarre and super expensive). As movie geeks, the shop was the low point.
But as a movie fan, the horror museum in the basement is a must-​do for 3 Euros. It’s not a great museum by any means but if you are a fan of Argento’s films, you have to go, if only for the museum’s unintentionally hilarious narration tape (make sure you ask them to play it in English). «Please, do not to be scared of those things that make the noise in dark.» HA HA, it is the best. We walked through the museum twice just so we could hear it again. The small museum has several rooms set up with original props from some of Argento’s most popular movies (‘Dracula,’ ‘Opera,’ ‘Deep Red’ and more). The props are pretty freaking cool even if you have never seen any of the movies.
I’d give the store 1.5 stars and the museum 3.5 stars. That makes this place clock in with a good, solid 3 stars. Just don’t go expecting a kick ass movie geek shop ’cause that’s not what it is.