Review: Suspiria (1977)

Suspiria is one of the horror classics that you don’t hear about as much as Exorcist of Dawn of The Dead but it deserves to be included amongst that lot because it’s a highly effective and brilliantly crafted horror film from the master of Italian frights, Dario Argento.

The film follows an American ballet student, Suzy, who transfers to a prestigious dance school in Germany. While staying there she begins to suspect there’s more to the school than her teachers are letting on, add in the fact that anyone who is expelled from the school turns up dead mere hours later though mysterious circumstances and her suspicions begin to arise. It’s a simple plot, almost to a fault with some plot points not making a lot of sense on the outside but it is very effective. We can see right from the start that there’s something wrong and it builds from there, tying it to the school and the staff before the big reveal at the end, granted this film’s reputation precedes it so I knew what was going on, that didn’t stop the reveal from being any less impressive and the simplicity allows the more primeval elements to come to the forefront.

The only place where the film doesn’t work - and I hate to say this - is the characters, they were good but just that, good, there really wasn’t anyone that grabbed my attention. I mean Suzy was a good heroine, her realisation that things aren’t right matched the audiences and Jessica Harper manages to play into the wide-eyed innocence that contrasted against the more disturbed elements of the school but she’s a little too passive to stand out and spends a good chunk of her time in bed ill while the other students are killed around her. Outside of Harper we got a decent villain in Joan Bennett’s Madam Blanc, the school’s headmistress who spoke lies with such authority that it was difficult to tell she was lying had we the audience not seen visual proof of the fact. But honestly other than them two very little of the cast made an impact, unlike the story which stepped to the side to allow the style to take over, the lack of decent characters made the film feel hollow at points.

Thankfully though the style is more than enough to carry the film on its own because where this film shines is the direction, Dario Argento is a master of Italian horror and Suspiria is his magnum opus. The most obvious thing of note is the cinematography, this is one of the most colourful horror film I’ve ever seen, Argento uses a technical process to make the primary colours (Red, blue and green) really bright and vibrant, red especially with all the bloodshed in this film and the result is stunning, visually alone this film is something else, it gives it that unnatural feel, a nightmarish setting, like none of this is real and it works wonders for the film.

Something else that really helps this film is the creepiness factor, cause it is ramped up to eleven here, there’s always that sense that something’s gonna happen, something will appear on screen and fuck things up for the characters. It builds and builds but strike that perfect balance so that it builds up enough to be shocking without going on too long. Take the scene with the blind man in the town square, you know something’s gonna happen, you know someone’s out there but the end result still surprises you.

Another point of note is the gore, this film manages to be quite bloody but it never goes gory ant it benefits from that. And there are some pretty brutal moments in this film, the aforementioned blind man scene has a nasty bit involving a throat, the first kill of the film is really hard to watch, especially a close up of a certain important organ getting stabbed. It still makes my chest shiver to think about that. Yet never does the film go overboard and cartoony, even with the bright red blood, it stays firm in it’s horror standing.

One last thing I want to talk about is the score by Goblin, quite unusual for a horror movie it’s not quiet or underlying, it’s loud, it’s in your face but it works, giving you the sense of foreboding, like at any moment something terrible is about to happen. And it occurs in the most quiet of on-screen moment, an early scene has a girl getting into an elevator with the score screaming at you and you’re waiting but nothing happens, it keeps you on your feet. One important thing to note is that at times the score sounds very tribal, very ritualistic which helps the reveal of the film, at others you don’t know if the score is actually the score or if it’s part of the scene and that is something that also helps with the creepiness factor.

I wish I could say more about Suspiria but it’s such a visceral experience that it kinda speaks for itself, While the lack of characters is something that holds the film back, especially for such a character driven reviewer like myself, Argento’s handle on the horror genre and his unrelenting force towards directing carries this film into its vibrant, brutal and unnerving legacy. It’s confusing, it’s disturbing and it’s unforgettable.

8.5/10