Suspiria

Few films can hope to have the seismic impact that Dario Argento’s Suspiria had on release in 1977. Make no mistake - this is one of the essential cornerstones of the horror genre.

A few things led me to re-watch Argento’s horror cult classic. One, me and my partner were looking to soak in an atmospheric horror film for the evening. Two, it would present a chance to watch the brand new 4K remaster on the recently released Blu-Ray. And three, there’s a renewed buzz around the film in light of the recently released trailer for the upcoming, and surprisingly promising looking, American remake. Plus, it had been a while since I'd seen it and I was eager to enter its strange and illogical world once again.

Suspiria is fairly basic narrative-wise but makes up for it with impeccable technique

The plot of Suspiria is very simple. American ballerina Susy Bannion (Jessica Harper) travels to Freiberg, Germany to study at a very prestigious dance school. The whole atmosphere of the place seems very off, with the staff dealing with the recent murder of one its students in a fairly blasé way (they just upfront tell Susy, a brand new student, this fact just as she walks through the door). As the atmosphere builds and builds, Susy teams up with fellow student Sara (Stefania Casini) to solve the mystery of the strange happenings in the school and eventually discover (spoilers) it is run by a witch coven.

The plot of Suspiria is very basic but this is done to make room for other wider elements the film is toying with. Indeed, Suspiria is part of a larger body of Italian horror films that come under the term giallo. In general, (there's plenty discourse on this genre and loads of disagreements) these films have an unusual lack of a coherent narrative arc. Most will have a mystery story framing the narrative but this will soon descend into a general disregard for realism in terms of the acting and dialogue along with the film revelling in nonsensical plot elements and reveals. I would argue that Suspiria is not quite as out there as some of the films in this genre (Argento's follow-up, Inferno, takes these concepts into absolutely insane territory) but it is a good general example of all these concepts coming together to make for a successfully disorientating and horrific experience yet still be slightly approachable, thus making it a good entry way into the world of Italian horror.

Suspiria revels in the protracted murders of its victims

Few horror films look as stunning as Suspiria. In a genre not particularly renowned for its use of colour (outside of blood red), Argento’s bold use of primary colours is still unprecedented. Using film stock from the 1950s to achieve the effect, the film feels like a hallucinatory fever dream with the shifting colour scheme used to indicate changes in mood, tone and character emotion. One of the best descriptions of the film I have heard is that it's like Grimm’s Fairy Tales meets German Expressionistic masterpiece The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in Technicolour. In this regard, the set-design is also immaculate, placing an emphasis on symmetry and retaining that almost fairy-tale-like quality. The dance school is just one of them iconic horror locations and is filled with loads of strange characters - the bossy instructor Miss Tanner, the weird maid-and-boy-servent duo, the giant servant Pavlo (who has recently acquired a new set of false of teeth) and the blind piano tutor being just some of the strange figures filling the place with character.

Oddly, I think the dubbing works really well. It is clearly dubbed (as was the case with most Italian exports at the time - there's a big history about Italian filmmaking in the 1960-70s about why and how films were dubbed but I won't get into it here) but I think the slightly stunted dialogue that doesn't quite match the lip movement of the actors gives the film just another added layer of being slightly off. The soundtrack by prog-rock band Goblin goes wonderfully in sync with all of this however, with the now iconic music etched into all audiences who have seen this film. The soundtrack is loud and fairly uncomfortable, with voices whispering and occasionally shouting over the music (including the words "witch" well before the reveal in Act Three).

The film's tagline boldly proclaimed that "The Only Thing More Terrifying Than The Last 12 Minutes of This Film Are The First 92" and for a 1970s audience, it's hard not to see how this lived up to such a claim. As part of the giallo genre trappings, Suspiria works on a nightmare-like logic. While most American horror films begin in a place of reality before descending into the madness and surreality of the situation, Suspiria and giallo already starts here. The audacious opening, in which we see in gruesome detail the murder of the student fleeing from the school when Susy arrives, is unforgettable in its grisly attention to detail (including a close up of the killer's knife entering the victim's heart) and the impeccable style of the proceedings. And there are few scenes in horror as toe-curlingly nasty as the maggot infestation scene. As the film progress, traditional narrative progression is thrown out of the window in favour of increasingly more audacious set-pieces culminating in Susy's encounter with the leader of the coven. And yes - magic exists in this world.

Quite possibly one of the most audacious openings to any horror film every made

It's hard not to consider, watching it now with a 21st century mind-set, if Suspiria is misogynist or not. With how the beautiful visuals depict brutal violence against women (not to mention some unfortunate comments from Argento himself on the subject of females) it has the potential to be quite troubling. However, Peter Sobczynski in his excellent retrospective article on the film, argues that, in the case of Suspiria, labelling it misogynist is too simple and ignores the numerous ways it is quietly progressive. He points out that the violence does indeed happen to women however all the men in the film are rendered as either strange or completely ineffectual. All the major roles in the film are played by women, they control the action and are the true sources of power (1). Susy herself feels like a prototype for the final girl archetype, paving the way for figures such as Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode in the following year's Halloween. Susy starts the film as a naive young girl finishing up her character arc by toppling the ancient evil woman controlling the dance school. Make of that what you will. I would argue it's not quite up to the standard we'd expect today in terms of representation but for the mid-70s, Suspiria was dealing in some quietly groundbreaking stuff (especially considering the slew of genuinely misogynistic video nasties awaiting release in the 1980s).

So, despite having a fairly basic narrative, Suspiria holds up really well 40 years after its release. It is a case of style over substance but in this instance the style is so good it almost forms a kind of substance in its place (if that makes any sense). What is a basic chilling mystery story about a witch coven becomes an excessive experience in impeccable filmmaking technique that manages to sustain a bizarre and horrific tone across the whole of its run time. Argento would use Suspiria as a launch point to a trilogy of films called The Three Mothers, with each part of the series dealing with a triumvirate of ancient and evil witches. His follow-up, Inferno, served as the second part of the trilogy and the recent final part, The Mothers of Tears, closed the series off. Needless to say though, Suspiria is still Argento at his best and is the premium example of 1970s giallo at its classiest.

Also, watch the recent 4K restoration if you can, either on Blu-Ray or on the big screen. It's a real treat seeing the film remastered and back to how it should have always looked.

References

(1) Peter Sobczynski, ""Do You Know Anything About Witches?" Suspiria at 40" https://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/do-you-know-anything-about-witches-suspiria-at-40 accessed 10/06/2018