SUSPIRIA (Dir. Dario Argento, 1977)
“The ending of Suspiria isn’t bad, but it’s not as scary as the opening, which is one of the great set pieces in horror cinema.” — Edgar Wright
I always wondered what Suspiria was about. I saw it addressed again and again as one of the greatest horror films of all time.
It doesn’t give you any sense of understanding what the story or the plot was about before you actually start watching it. Finally one day, I started watching it and as soon as Suzy walked out to the street from the airport, I understood that I was in a world full of evil right from the start.
Each frame one after the other pointed out that the very nuts and bolts about this world are sinister. The music from the Italian prog-rock band Goblin screams chants of “Witch, witch” to our ears. Even the automatic door makes us uncomfortable and we start watching the movie on the edge of our seats.
Most horror films tend to not do that in the beginning nowadays. They choose to draw the audience slowly into the deeper, darker moments of their world, saving the best moments to the end. But that’s not Dario Argento’s style because his movies usually don’t run out of ‘best moments’. Suspiria is unsettling, sinister, and inherently evil from beginning to end.
