Suspiria

UK Release Date. 28 July 1977
Certification. X
Running Time. 1 hour 39 mins
Director. Dario Argento
Cast. Eva Axén, Joan Bennett, Stefania Casini, Jessica Harper, Alida Valli.

Rating. 78%

Review.

Suspiria is a bonafide horror classic.

Directed by the renowned Italian horror filmmaker, Dario Argento, Suspiria marks the first entry in the so-called 'Three Mothers' trilogy - Suspiria, Inferno and Mother Of Tears. Suspiria contains all the fundamental elements of Giallo cinema - a stylish Italian-produced film that blends the atmosphere and suspense of a thriller with the violence and eroticism of horror.

The film opens with American dance student Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper) arriving in Germany, at Freiburg's prestigious Tanz Dance Academy, in the middle of a torrential downpour one dark and stormy night - only to be refused admittance to the school. That same night, another student, a distraught Pat Hingle (Eva Axén) flees the academy and is brutally murdered at a nearby friend's apartment. When Suzy is admitted to the school the following morning, she soon comes to realise something is very wrong with the place.

Suspiria is part Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and part fever dream - a hallucinatory, erotic, terrifying horror masterpiece. Argento remains true to the core of what a horror film is and what a horror film is supposed to do. You leave the film affected.

One of Suspiria's undoubted strengths is Argento's self-assured and captivating cinematography, as well as beautifully bizarre depictions of horror that enhance its increasingly malevolent supernatural storyline. The director blends the occult with fairy tales, bathed in gorgeous and vivid hues. The sumptuous visual design was meant to reproduce the colour palette of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Equally, whilst others, for example, Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho), Stanley Kubrick (A Clockwork Orange), William Friedkin (The Exorcist) and Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) were using almost every ounce of the medium to scare, Argento kept it simple. Profoundly simple. Yes, the violence depicted in Suspiria is graphic, but Argento depicts it in such a manner that even the most horrific moments have a ghastly aesthetic. Suspiria is renowned for the murder set pieces devised by Argento, which remain some of horror's most infamous. The opening sequence for example, effortlessly blends palpable terror and sublime style. The dance school setting, itself, reflects a story that is as intricately choreographed as any ballet. 

Dario Argento's impact can be seen today, in modern cinema - John Carpenter's screenplay for Halloween and Prince Of Darkness, Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth and Crimson Peak, and even Michael Mann's Manhunter - all obviously influenced by the work of the one-time journalist and film critic. And James Wan, the director of Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring, seemingly celebrated Giallo cinema in an open love letter to the genre with 2021's Malignant.

If Suspiria isn't Argento's masterpiece, then to this day, the film remains one of the most visually stylish horror films I have ever seen. A cacophony of sound and imagery that inextricably manages to come across as both gruesome and poetic.