Film: Suspiria
Director: Dario Argento
Country: USA
Released: February 1977
Runtime: 99 minutes
Genre: Horror
Studio: Seda Spettacoli
Influenced: John Carpenter, Luca Guadagnino, Guillermo del Toro, Edgar Wright, Peter Strickland
Italy was a hotbed of cinematic innovation in the horror genre in the 60s and 70s and Dario Argento came from a specific tradition of "giallo" films, a subgenre that combined mystery with slasher elements to create a whodunnit-style horror thriller. The term giallo ("yellow") refers to the iconic yellow cover of Mondadori crime novels published in Italy, and was adopted by film critics to refer to this new breed of Italian horror films. The subgenre's pioneer was Mario Bava, who released Italy's first horror sound film I Vampiri in 1957 and followed that up with iconic 60s horror movies like Blood & Black Lace (1964) and Planet of the Vampires (1965). What Mario Bava began, Dario Argento perfected, with Deep Red (1975) his breakthrough film as a standalone director. He maintained many of the successful elements of this film for his follow-up Suspiria – including the music from prog rock band Goblin and the innovative use of colour – and enhanced it with a superior script that he co-wrote with Daria Nicolodi.
Daria was an actress who Dario fell in love with during casting for Deep Red and the two had a child together the year after. Daria's grandmother was a "white witch" and the occult stories she was told as a child inspired the script for Suspiria. Daria was also reading Thomas de Quincey's essay Suspiria de Profundis at the time of working on the screenplay with Dario, and this not only provided the film's title but also some of its supernatural inspiration. Dario conceived Suspiria as the first instalment in his planned Three Mothers trilogy, exploring themes of motherhood, witchcraft and evil. Daria makes a very brief cameo appearance in the crowd at the airport, but the fact she was not given the starring role nor credited for her writing work would become a source of bitterness and division between the two.
Suspiria opens with Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper) arriving in Germany to attend the Tanz Dance Academy. From the moment she steps foot in the academy, a series of mysterious and violent events unfold. Suzy discovers that the academy is controlled by a coven of witches, led by Helena Markos, and as Suzy delves deeper into the secrets of the academy, she unravels a web of supernatural forces, witchcraft and murder. Suspiria is a revolutionary piece of filmmaking with a unique look provided by its intricate set designs, and its combination of weird music and the occult makes for heady stuff. Argento used colour and lighting to great effect to create a chilling, unworldly atmosphere. The film opens with an intense and colourful murder sequence where a young woman, Pat Hingle, flees from an unseen supernatural force, while one of the most iconic scenes occurs during a dance rehearsal, when Suzy realises that her movements are causing the demise of another student, Olga, who dies a surreal and grotesque death.
Argento paces the film to perfection and, at just under 100 minutes long, it never feels indulgent or excessive. The director combines various horror tropes and special effects in Suspiria, from the supernatural (witches and the occult), body horror, slasher killings, whodunnit elements (Suzy is investigating who's behind the killings), obscene violence involving animals (the maggots and the blind man's dog) and a general atmosphere of tension enhanced by Goblin's perfectly pitched soundtrack of haunting chants, pounding rhythms and eerie melodies. In the final confrontation, Suzy faces off against Helena Markos in her lair, a room filled with decaying remains and dark magic, and we're treated to a gory finale. In 2018, Luca Guadagnino directed a critically acclaimed remake of Suspiria, taking a different approach while maintaining the core themes of the original. The film's legacy continues to resonate with horror fans and stands as a testament to Dario's (and Daria's) artistry and vision.
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