Suspiria (1977).

[Neville]

This has been the third of all Argento's films I've seen by now (previous were the serial killer films Sleepless and Deep Red), and it has left me more puzzled than fascinated.

Argento tries really hard to build a film that has the look and the feel of a nightmare. The Goblin soundtrack is dead-on here (I conplained of how weird it sounded on Deep Red) and the state of the art settings are nothing but fantastic. Often filtered through blue or red lights, we see walls that open to reveal thin air, doors that have handles at almost eye level (the IMDB provides an interesting reason behind this), profusely decorated glass doors that never reveal what happens behind them... Even the trademark Argento killings have here an eeriness difficult to express through words.

But despite this, I felt the film was flawed. Argento is clearly a believer in the substance-over-plot school, and for my taste this was evident during too much of the running time. The beginning and the ending are very good, but during the middle section I often had the impression nothing was happening at all, and it was not a pleasant sensation.

I'm still quite fascinated by the movie's looks, but it felt to empty-headed for my taste. I'll probably watch it again in the future, and I'm certain I'll probably enjoy it better then, but for the moment I've erased Inferno, Suspiria's sequel, from my future viewing list, as most reviewers complain of its lack of plot and sense.

P.D: For spaniards like me, it is also a great surprise to see singer Miguel Bose in a supporting role as one of the classmates of Jessica Harper.



Post Edited (05-02-05 11:17)

[odinn7]

Ya know...I saw this movie last year and I must be missing something because I just don't get it. Most everyone on the board talks about this movie like it's something fantastic but it really didn't sit that way with me. I was rather disappointed after all the build-up that I read and then actually seeing it and wondering what all the hype was about. Perhaps it's me.

[Mr Hockstatter]

I hear all these great things about those movies, and then I watch them and it's like, the emperor has no clothes.  I mean, did everybody else's copy of this movie come with a great big bag of weed to smoke while they watched it?  Because I'm sure I would have enjoyed the hell out of it if I'd been stoned.  But sober, it didn't do anything for me.  Hell, drunk at midnight on the day before Halloween it didn't do anything for me.  It certainly wasn't scary, the acting and dialogue were bad, the plot was barely even there, and the ending was a big ball of cheese.  Oh, but it had red and green lights!  Oh boy!  Red and green!  And while absolutely nothing was happening with the story, the camera was moving around in really weird ways!  Like, it went up behind a light bulb!

Yippie!

[odinn7]

OK Mr Hockstatter, you were a little bit more cruel than I intended to be but that's almost my thoughts on it too. Well, to each his own I guess. I don't know though, perhaps it's beyond my intellect and I'm just not able to catch what it is that makes this movie great. It's happened before, it could happen again.

[Master Blaster]

I dont think it's a matter of intellect as much as a matter of personal taste. Sometimes I think people treat horror films way too much like high-brow intellectual art, which for me can sap all the fun out of them. Susperia certainly isnt 100% cheese but it isnt 100% art either.

[Neville]

Mr Hockstatter wrote: "I hear all these great things about those movies, and then I watch them and it's like, the emperor has no clothes."

Hey, I'm not saying that the emperor has no clothes, I just say the if the emperor appeared like that in, say,  the Superbowl, it would be a big scandal, letters of protest would flood the TV Channel offices and the firm would be fined $500,000. Which is not the same.

But yes, now seriously, I think this film is overrated.

[DaveMunger]

When there are so many volumes written about how great a movie is and almost all the only thing they really say is that the lighting was cool, don't expect much to be cool about it other than the lighting.

Couldn't find anything at imdb.com about the doorknobs in Suspiria, and I tried ridiculously hard.

[odinn7]

Dave Munger wrote:

> Couldn't find anything at imdb.com about the doorknobs in
> Suspiria, and I tried ridiculously hard.


It's in the trivia section.

Suspiria Trivia

[special ed]

that sucked ass

[Mr_Vindictive]

Suspiria is still my favorite of Argento's work.  Sure there is little plot, but for me the film is quite entertaining.

Now I will say that I did hate it when I first rented it on video years ago after hearing quite a bit word of mouth about how great it was.  I was disappointed.  Then, a few years ago I picked up a remastered Anchor Bay copy on DVD for about ten bucks and was surprised just how much I enjoyed it the second time around.

As Neville says, Argento was trying his hardest to make the film as much like a nightmare as possible.  The film really works for me in that respect.  As someone else said though, it's certainly not high art but it's also not terrible either.  

One of the main things that I love about the film is it's ambiguity.  You know the school is a coven but there is a much deeper story going on than what the viewer ever sees, which is part of the film's appeal.  The viewer can sense that there's something much darker and sinister going on in the school than what we see.

[Diablo44]

I was disappointed in this one as well. It started off well enough, with the disturbing opening death scenes, but then it just lost steam as it went along. The Goblin Soundtrack had the same problem, starting out as eerie, but then getting too repetitive and losing it's effectiveness. The scene where the blind man is in the public square is where I think it fell completely apart. Too much build-up and no payoff.

[Master Blaster]

I actually liked that scene. You expect the guy to get attacked, but not by his own dog. Paid off for me anyway. : )

Fulci ripped that scene off for the Beyond afterward. If you ever watch the Beyond you'll recognize it. He borrowed lots of stuff from Argento.

[Gerry]

I'm with you Skaboi.  I really liked SUSPIRIA.  It has a terrific sense of dread and is visually very much like a nightmare.  The scene where the girl falls into the room full of razor wire is very intense.  I think what a lot of people don't realize is how inventive Argento was.  He and Mario Bava have been imitated so much over the years that when you see their films now they don't seem so inventive.  But at the time, nobody had done what they were doing on film for horror.  Hitchcock, Argento, Bava, and Romero are probably the most imitated horror filmmakers ever.

Take a look at the documentary "Dario Argento: An Eye for Horror" sometime, and you'll get a better appreciation of just how respected he is by his peers...John Carpenter, Alice Cooper, George Romero, and Tom Savini all contributed interview time to the documentary.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Gerry,

I've seen An Eye For Horror, which is quite a viewing.  Not only do you get a good idea of who Argento is, you also get an idea of how strange the man is.  There is a interview in the film with Asia Argento and she mentions how Argento loved to have her mother killed in his films and loved to have her raped in his films.

Dark guy.

[Diablo44.]

But it took SOOOO LOOOOONG. The guys yelling and yelling, "Who's there?! Who's there?" and Goblin's going completely nuts on the kettle drums and the chanting. . and then the dog goes spring-loaded and bites his throat out. Was the dog just f'ing with him?! I'm surprised the dog didn't give him a wedgie first ( :

Also, did anyone notice that the blind guy sounded EXACTLY like Gene Wilder when he yelled, "You Stupid b***h!" at the dance studio? My brother and I actually starting laughing at that point.