Boy, so much s--t was talked about this film, and I just want to thank you all for dropping my expectations so low that I was able to thoroughly enjoy Scarlet Diva. If you're sitting down to watch this film, one hopes that a certain context is assumed, and an interest has been established, such that terms like "self-indulgent" and "bad acting" do not even enter into the vocabulary. The film pulls you along with heavy visual style, holding its own sexy trash pulse while at the same time prostrating itself at the altar of the director/star's horror-god father Dario Argento, but in a good way. For example, the latter's trademark use of colored lighting is employed liberally, and to appropriate effect. Rapper Schoolly D and NY shock performer/painter Joe Coleman both make great respective turns, as a drug dealer and sleazy producer. Like the work of her auteur Dad, and writer Mother Daria Nicolodi (who appears as "The Mom" in the film), Asia Argento's Scarlet Diva is a horror film, and you will feel horrified at certain scenes. But it's a "horror of life" film, and it's assumed that much of it is semi-autobiographical. Would you pay to see it if it were Drew Barrymore's sleazoid child star/artist family upbringing? Dare to give 90 minutes up to the Scarlet Diva.
