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Suspiria [1976]


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A "beautiful" horror film, the best Dario Argento film by some way
Review date: 2008-09-23 Rating: 10 out of 10

This is my favourite Dario Argento film. It's visually very interesting, has a fantastic, haunting soundtrack (by Goblin) and builds atmosphere better than any of his other films. It's basically a dark, adult fairytale horror film that concentrates on visuals. The script and the story are not particularly impressive, but they are really not the point of the film.
Far better than your average horror film, this really is worth watching even though the effects at the end are a little dated.
It's the first part of a loosely linked "trilogy" with "Inferno" as the second part and the very disappointing "Mother Of Tears" as the third.

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Reviews


sorry...no
Review date: 2008-04-08 Rating: 4 out of 10

i've wanted to see this film for years!!So many good reviews and so many recommendations from famiy and friends that i was over the moon to find my boyfriend's mate owned a copy. However by the end of the film i wished i'd just carried on looking forward to seeing it and hadn't actually watched it, for i found it immensely dull and confusing, added to which the main female lead was as irritating as i could stand!

A tad over-hyped.....
Review date: 2008-03-20 Rating: 4 out of 10

Make no mistake, the Goblin score is excellent and a highly recommended addition to any music-lovers collection. However you may find yourself tiring of the constantly repeated 'Halloween-esque' riff that plays over a dozen times throughout the course of the movie.

The movie is average at best. Colorful scenes, dream like atmosphere and your typical dose of low budget fx will keep you from switching off entirely however you may finish up at the end credits feeling a little confused.

Don't let some of the more "pretentious" reviewers on here fool you into thinking this is essential viewing. You may watch it once, but I doubt you'll be rushing to put it on again in a hurry.

Argento's garish slice of gothic gore... an experiment in pure-visual filmmaking.
Review date: 2007-12-17 Rating: 8 out of 10

For some, Suspiria is Dario Argento's greatest film... and why not? It has a strong atmosphere right from the start, with that drifting use of the camera, staccato use of montage and that pounding, over-the-top prog-rock score from Italian band Goblin. It's certainly a continuation of the style developed in his first film, The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, and nurtured right the way through to his ultimate masterpiece (in my opinion at least), Deep Red. As with that film, the use of colour and wide-screen composition here is ecstatic and heavily indebted to Hitchcock's Vertigo, with those red walls, ethereal white lights, with softer hues of blue contrasting from those sinister, adjacent rooms. As a result, Suspiria could be considered the most beautiful horror film ever made, although; it's not necessarily a horror film at all... that's to say that the film doesn't really make you jump out of your seat with a number of well-timed, well-thought out scares, with most horror films these days really going for the cheap contrast between a lengthy passage of silence and then, a jolting burst of loud noise.

Instead, Suspiria is more of a lingering film, presenting us with images and situations that we keep stored in the back of our minds until the time we find ourselves walking alone through a park at night, or making our way up the stairs in our own house, moving past a darkened room, which could hide an unseen foe. As with a lot of Argento, the plot is slight, with some seeing his films as nothing more than an excuse to kill women in elaborate, over-the-top ways... however, for me, there is always something to hold our interest in the story, or some other way of interpreting the plot that makes it of interest to those wanting repeated viewings. For example, some fans see the film as a dream-play, with the whole thing taking place within the lead character's imagination, which could, I suppose, explain the film's dreamlike style and inconsistent changes within the tone and momentum of the plot. It might also better explain the ending, which has always been a little problematic for me... an opinion shared by a few other people on various websites scattered around the net.

The film seems like it's building to something epic, but it never really gets there, instead climaxing with a question mark, as opposed to a full stop. Of course, there's also the quasi-sequel Inferno, which some consider to be greater than Suspiria itself, but I haven't seen it for years... then, there's also the fact that the two films were supposed to be part of a loose-trilogy of works subtitled 'The Three Mothers', though, at the time of writing, Argento has yet to deliver the third and final part. Perhaps when this absent third film appears, we'll be able to appreciate Suspiria and Inferno in a whole new light... well, perhaps? What does impress about Suspiria, regardless of the ending, is the creation of it's own world and a completely foreboding atmosphere, with Argento taking the idea of stylistic abstraction to new heights, creating a gaudy, larger-than-life, Technicolor fantasia that owes as much to Disney and the brothers Grimm, as it does to Hitchcock and Mario Bava.

There are probably some elements of Freud scattered amongst the fairytale symbolism and allusions to occult horror too, with the notions of youth and womanhood, and the idea of the mother as hinted at in the proposed trilogy's subtitle, though these are just personal inflections on the plot thought out by myself. Like all Argento, the film can be taken at face value, as an over-the-top, slightly silly, slightly camp little occult thriller with pretensions at depth, or, as with Deep Red and, in particular, Tenebrae, you can choose to read deeper meanings into the characters and the overall plot. Argento has said in many interviews since the release of Suspiria that the film was influenced by a trip through the Austria and Swiss boarders with his co-writer/then-partner, Daria Nicolodi, on which he became obsessed with the Austrian-born Rudolf Steiner, whose notorious Waldorf schools had been criticised for allegedly teaching occult practices in the guise of arts-based education. It is this element that acts as the central backbone to the story, with Argento and Nicolodi dispensing with back story and, instead, employing the use of a voice over during the opening credits to fill us in on the background of the central character.

Again, this could further the idea of Suspiria as a literal dream/nightmare that the character cannot escape... which would mean that the bludgeoning use of dialog replacement (sadly, a prevalent factor in all post-war Italian cinema) and somewhat over-the-top tone of many of the actors could perhaps make a little more sense in conveying the character's nocturnal state. Of course, as I stated earlier, this is just one of many possible interpretations of the film... at the end of the day, you're enjoyment of the film depends entirely upon how far you're willing to go to buy into Argento's outlandish (and ultimately disappointing) plot... not to mention taking into account how susceptible you are to the overwhelming beauty of his cinematography. It's also perhaps beneficial to the enjoyment of this film if you're familiar with some of the director's other works, in particular his Giallo films, The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, Deep Red, and Terror at the Opera.

As it stands, thirty-years on (and about to be remade by Hollywood as a EMO stalk-and-slash love story), Suspiria is a flawed work... somewhat incomplete but still completely unlike any other 'horror' film you're ever likely to see. It has it's own style and it's own little universe and if you choose to immerse yourself in that world and buy into Argento's ideology, you're sure to be rewarded by the film's unique sense of style, elaborate design, and grisly scenes of murder and occult conspiratorial revenge.

Review
Review date: 2007-11-11 Rating: 10 out of 10

The story involves a young American ballet student, Suzy Banyon (Jessica Harper), who arrives in Germany to attend a prestigious dance academy. On the night of her arrival, there is a torrential downpour, and she is unable to gain admittance to the school. But she witnesses one student, a young blonde girl, flee the building in a panic.

The fleeing student is horribly murdered, and Suzy begins having suspicions that all is not as it seems at the school.

This is one of Dario Argento best films. Its the first of a trilogy he likes to call the 3 mothers. If you like scary, strange horror films, this is for you. One of the best Horror movies of all time

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Jessica Harper
Alida Valli
Joan Bennett
Stefania Casini
Miguel Bose

Creators:
Jessica Harper (Primary Contributor)
Stefania Casini (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: Starz Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: Starz Home Entertainment
EAN: 5060020700545
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2006-10-23
Audience rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
Running time: 94 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1976
Language: English (Original Language)

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