Marta (Deep Red)

**Marta** (last name unknown) is the main antagonist of the film thriller / horror Italian *Deep Red* directed by Dario Argento. She's played by Italian actress Clara Calamai.

## Caracterization

Marta, a former Italian actress retired for years, is a woman with severe mental disorders, which probably forced her to leave her job. E 'described as a reprobate mind, cruel and childish at the same time. In public he pretends to a lovely woman, a bit faded, and melancholy (especially in remembering his past in the cinema) but is actually very smart and adept at controlling and preventing the moves of his goal of hunting, as well as a smart and ruthless killer, capable of acts of incredible ferocity towards his victim. E 'used to listen to a lullaby child taped to unleash his rampage of violence (who eventually listened to music in the evening who murdered her husband), even though, in a couple of occasions, he manages to do without this, and to act in an equally violent and lethal.

It 'also a kind of "fetish", possessing a macabre collection of dolls of various shapes and sizes (dancers, children were hanged and beheaded, demons etc..), several edged weapons and various toys like marbles and, before committing the murders, it seems to make some sort of ritual with them, dipingendosi eyes with black makeup.

## Movie

Marta began his "career criminal" when, one Christmas night, killed her husband because he wanted it interned in a mental institution because of his mental problems. The murder took place under the eyes of their only son, Charles, who was quietly listening to a vinyl engraved with a children's song (the same one that triggers his rampage murders in the mother), unaware of the horror that was about to consume before him. After that, the woman's corpse walled up inside the living room of the house, who then left forever with his son and that became the subject of scary urban legends.

Years later, Marta attended a conference on parapsychology, psychic called by the young German Helga Ullmann and his friends and colleagues Giordani and Mario Bardi. During the conference, Helga came into contact, thanks to his powers, with the mind of Marta, discovering the murder she committed and predicting that it would not be the only one that she would have committed.

That same evening Marta, determined not to be discovered, rushed to the home of Helga and brutally killed, hitting it several times with a cleaver and making her stab the throat with the broken glass of a window. Murder witnessed Marc Daly, a young American pianist close friend of his son Charles, who unwittingly saw her in the face, but did not realize who he was (in fact exchanged his face reflected in a mirror for a picture), and then became the next target of the hunt for Marta. The woman was able to get into the house of the boy, who was able to close in a timely manner to key in his studio. Before leaving, Marta said through the closed door, that he would not have escaped, and that he would kill him in the future.

As Marc, haunted by the murder of Helga (despite his friend Carlo, well aware dell'indole bloody mother, had advised him to leave the city), had continued to investigate going back to the writer Amanda Righetti, who had written a book inherent in the 'murder of the husband of Martha, and to which he wanted to talk, Marta decided to kill the writer. He went into his house from the cages releasing its battlements Indians, hanging from the ceiling a little doll with a noose around his neck, and finally, locking all the doors, so he could not escape. So the first stunned with a blow to the head, then sbattendole violence with his head against the bathroom wall, and finally ustionandola to death by immersing his head in his bathtub full of boiling water. Before he died, Amanda was able to write on the wall covered with water vapor the name of Martha.

Discovered the murder of the woman, Marc contacted Professor Giordani, who realized how the writer had left, on his deathbed, a clue about the identity of his murderess. Marta then began to keep an eye on both. Marc was able to find the house where the woman had lived discovered, buried under the plaster of a wall, a horrible child's drawing depicting a man wounded in the chest, a child with a bloody knife in his hand and a christmas tree in the background. That same night Marta attacked and killed Giordani, before scaring him with a hideous mechanical doll, then stunning him with a blow to the head, shattering his teeth facendoglieli up against the edges of his fireplace and his desk and then finishing it with a blow of his opener the neck.

Despite this latest horrible homicide, Marc continued to investigate, going back to the villa and found the dining room walled years ago by Marta inside and finding in the now mummified body of her husband. Immediately after Marta hit him in the head and set fire to the villa, but Marc was saved just in time by Gianna, a young journalist with whom he had entered into a relationship.

Determined to see clearly once and for all, Marc was able to discover that a copy of the macabre design of the villa was in elementary school where Charles, as a child, he had studied, and went there together with Gianna, convinced that there would be able to discover the name of the murderer. The two found that Carlo, willing to do anything to protect his mother, he took the blame for his crimes, he wounded Gianna and attempted to kill his friend, but he died hit by a truck as he fled after being chased by the police.

Marta, furious and saddened by the death of his son, Marc followed her into the house of Helga, in which the boy was returned after realizing that Charles could not be the real murderess, look for more clues. The boy, finally found out who was the real murderess (remembering that what he saw was not a picture, but a mirror in which was reflected the face of Marta), she found herself face to face with Marta who screamed in his face that he killed his son, who did not want to do is protect her, she told him they were things really went, and then tried to kill him, wounding him with his ax. In the scuffle that followed, a large pendant that she wore around her neck got stuck in the elevator of the building. Marc, to defend themselves, flipped the elevator, in his motion, he took with him the necklace Marta. The woman died in a horrible way, with the necklace that sawed the neck, removing them from the net head.