Suspiria
Okay, before I start talking about this movie, I want you to watch this clip. It's the US trailer for the film, which was released in 1977. This was not Argento's first film, but it was his first foray into the fantastic.
As you can see, though it's a horror-fantasy film, it's gorgeous to look at. Argento wanted to make death beautiful, and with this movie, he made not only death beautiful, but everything else as well. The film is truly an otherworldly experience with the demented music of Goblin, the creative death scenes, the eyepopping colors, and the foreign setting. Though set in Germany, the film was made by Italians with actors from America, Italy and Germany... all speaking their native tongue on camera to be dubbed later depending on what country the film was being shown in. This was standard operating procedure for Italian films at the time, and in my opinion makes this film even more otherworldly.
One interesting thing about this film is how Dario Argento went for the look of The Wizard of Oz. In other words, he tried to replicate three-strip Technicolor, which had not been used in years. That's why you see so many vibrant primary colors in the film. I mentioned earlier creative death scenes. If you think the deaths in Friday the 13th are creative, you haven't seen anything. Argento is well known for imaginative deaths. In his film Opera from 1987, a woman gets killed from being shot in the eye while looking through a keyhole. Now, that may not seem so special, but it's the way it's shot that makes it so. Or a guy getting killed by a bunch of rats in Inferno. True, his films may be quite a bit of style over substance, but man what style! The music is very important to this film. It's theme is almost music box-like. At times it can sound unfocused and tribal. The group that did the music for this film would do the theme music for George Romero's Dawn of The Dead, which was produced by Argento. They would also continue to do music for Argento films.
The film is really a fairy tale... A dark Grimm type fairy tale. It has witches, it's set in Germany, it deals with school-girls... In fact, the screenplay was written so the schoolgirls were around 11 years old. However, they knew they couldn't get away with this stuff being done to kids, so they used teen actresses, but kept the script the same. So the girls speak as if they were 11 or so and the doorknobs on the school doors are all at head height. I can't recommend this film enough. It's meant so much to me. Especially since I saw it during the horror craze in my mid-teen years that made me want to make and study films.
I first saw the film when I was 16. I rented it on VHS in pan-and-scan, which I would not recommend anyone to watch it that way. It's meant to be viewed in widescreen, and you only get the full effect that way. I was blown away regardless, from the first five minutes, which you can find on youtube. (It wouldn't embed here.) If you do watch the film, watch it loud, without distraction, and in a dark room. It's the only way to watch it. I would also recommend any Argento film made before 1990, though I will say this is his best film, along with Deep Red, which is the film he did right before this one. If you'd like more fantasy-horror, this is the first film of a trilogy. It's followed by Inferno and Mother of Tears, though I can't really recommend the latter.
Sadly, there's been talk of Americanizing and remaking this film for a few years now. The Weinsteins hold the American rights to the film, but Argento has been fighting to stop the remake from happening, thankfully. Still, the Weinsteins also have made it so we don't have a blu-ray of the film, as they want to release it when the remake comes out. What a nightmare. Still, the DVD is good, and track it down if you can. It's well worth seeing, and an experience you aren't likely to forget. You don't even have to worry about subtitles!
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