 After Argento had experimented with pure supernatural horror with 1977's Suspiria and 1980's Inferno, Tenebrae represented the filmmaker's return to the giallo horror subgenre, which he had helped popularize in the 1970s. Argento was inspired by a series of incidents which saw an obsessed fan telephone the director to criticise him for the damaging psychological effects of his previous work. The telephone calls culminated in death threats towards Argento, who channelled the experience into the writing of Tenebrae. The director also wanted to explore the senselessness of killings he had witnessed and heard about while staying in Los Angeles in 1980, and his feeling at the time that true horror came from those who wanted "to kill for nothing".
