Sunday, October 30, 2016

Suspiria Movie Review

Suspiria (1977)
Buy Suspiria on Amazon
Written by: Dario Argento, Daria Nicolodi (screenplay)
Directed by: Dario Argento
Starring: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci 
Rated: R

My rating is simple, Watch It, It Depends, Skip it. Read my previous movie reviews!

Plot:
A ballet academy is a front for something supernatural and sinister.

Verdict:
From famed horror filmmaker Dario Argento, the DVD looks rough. Tiny, fuzzy images aside, this roughly stitches together horror scenes not to form a sensible story but just to shock you. As a die hard horror fan, this may be worth watching, but for most people if the fuzzy image doesn't stop you, the vapid story will.
Skip it.

Review:
The image quality is lackluster even considering this is from '77. A cleaner transfer would definitely help. I did watch the official DVD, straight from Netflix.
This works well as a horror movie and you can see the influence it had with the horror movie resurgence of the '80s. Much like the films that followed, this movie rejects narrative flow and stitches together pure horror scenes to illicit shocks and scares. It's great at creating a mood and the lighting and use of color really makes this cinematic, something imitators never quite accomplished.

The music and recurring theme adds a nice layer of tension.

If the intention was to capture madness, it nearly accomplishes that. Wikipedia is a  real boon to understanding what's happening since the poor quality makes the actors look similar.

This is a film history class movie. It's since been surpassed, The Shining came out in 1980 and is better in all respects, but Suspiria set the tone for what horror movies could be. It's ripe for a remake, and Tilda Swinton is supposedly starring in a remake to be released in 2017.

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