While visiting a museum, Anna is overcome by Stendhal syndrome, a condition which causes the sufferer to become overwhelmed when viewing great works of art.

While the police, believing Alfredo to be dead, search the river for his body, Anna meets and soon falls in love with Marie, a young French art student.

[1] Thomas Kretschmann was cast as Alfredo Grossi because he had previously worked with Asia on the film La Reine Margot (1994) and she recommended him to her father.

[citation needed] The work that Anna literally steps into is a painting by Rembrandt, depicting 17th century policemen and titled The Night Watch.

[citation needed] The huge grouper fish that Anna kisses was a remote model that was being pulled through the water by cables attached to a small float on the ocean's surface.

[citation needed] This is the second of (to date) six films in which Argento has directed his daughter, Asia, the five others being: Trauma, The Phantom of the Opera, The Mother of Tears, Dracula 3D, and Dark Glasses She also had roles in Demons 2 and The Church, both of which her father produced.

[5] Response from critics was mixed, with AllMovie's Jason Buchanan calling the film "a sadistic and disturbing psychological exploration", but one that is "ultimately a victim of its own excess and the director's tendency to overcomplicate a fairly simple storyline."

Buchanan praised the film's "stunningly visual opening sequence" and Ennio Morricone's "hauntingly hypnotic score" but criticized how "the seemingly meandering plot grinds to a halt just as it should truly shine.

"[6] Variety's David Rooney gave the film a mixed review, praising the film's "exhilarating" opening sequence and Giuseppe Rotunno's "cool and elegant" cinematography, but lamented that "[a]s with much of the director’s work, large sections of plot are pure hokum, and the gradual slackening of both pace and suspense in a sluggish second half only underlines the increasing silliness.

But it's a must-see for Argento completists, driven by a brave and disturbing performance by the director's daughter, Asia", though she criticized the film for taking "a serious wrong turn around the time Anna buys a blond, femme-fatale wig.

For its initial release in the United Kingdom, eleven cuts, primarily to the rape scenes, violence and some dialogue, totalling 2 minutes 47 seconds, were made by the distributor before submission to the BBFC for a video certificate.