This post is part of a series called "31 Days of Horror", thirty-one important horror films over the course of a month. Click Suspiria (1977): Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini and Udo Kier. Directed by Dario Argento, Screenplay by Dario Argento and Daria Nicolodi.
“Suspiria” is probably the most well-known of Dario Argento’s films. Argento made a name for himself in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s for exuberant, very lush, colorful and extremely violent horror films. The double murder that opens “Susperia” is a perfect example of this. Here, and in each of his subsequent films, Argento gets more and more ingenious with methods of death. If you thought the varied killings in the “Saw” films was something original, you’re dead wrong.
Argento takes suspense and gore to a new level of artistry here that very few directors - even to this day - can even begin to touch. Horrific operas are really what he’s crafting. “Suspiria” is a perfect example of this, from setting, to casting to set design and cinematography. “Suspiria” is one of the last films to pass through Technicolor labs in Italy (the same lab that processed the films of Sergio Leone) and it shows in every frame of this classic. The use of bright and otherworldly colors stresses a strange nightmare environment where anything can happen.
Like “The Omen”, this film relies heavily on it’s atmospheric score, in this case by the Italian band Goblin (who also offered their skills to the alternate European soundtrack for the Dario Argenti edit of George A. Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead”), the main theme kicks particular ass.
Alas, “Suspiria” is not immune to the Hollywood remake plague, at least four remakes being discussed (and subsequently abandoned) over the years, the most recent with Natalie Portman in the lead. Argento, in his own words, sums this up perfectly: “it will be shit, but that won’t be my fault.”
Get it at Amazon.com:
Suspiria (2-Disc Special Edition)
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