REVIEW: SUSPIRIA

Now if you are not familiar with Dario Argento he is the most famous of the "giallo" directors.  "Giallo" is an Italian word* that is used to describe a uniquely Italian cinema/literary genre that is best described as "Hitchcock Meets Itchy & Scratchy".  

Giallo is a genre filled with glamorous young women being murdered with VERY FREUDIAN blades and blood going all Jackson Pollock everywhere.  And "Suspiria" is Argento's most successful film. 

In a way, it is a departure from the usual crime/murder stories to a supernatural tale.  In the film, an American ballet student arrives at a German dance school seemingly run by a witch known as "The Mother of Sighs".  Anyone who gets too close to the truth is murdered - and we are not talking discreet poisonings or shootings here.  He are talking throats being slit and pouring out postbox-red blood.  You even get a shot of one victim's heart being lovingly pierced by the blade. Another meets her death in a room full of barbed wire.  (You'd think they'd have a sign on the door wouldn't you?  For example "SPIKY BARBED WIRE ROOM" right next to "SULPHURIC ACID ROOM" and adjacent to the "LOVELY FLUFFY BUNNIES ANNEX" etc).

The first in his "Three Mothers" trilogy, "Suspiria" is credited with being one of Argento's most coherent works.  Which is not to say that it actually IS coherent.  He's a writer/director more interested in saturated COLOUR and ATMOSPHERE and MUSIC.  I'm not conveying this well. Here's a picture. 

Never lend Dario your box of crayons is what I am trying to say here.  The red will come back as a nub.

The atmosphere is terrific and the soundtrack by Italian prog-rock band Goblin is one of the most memorably unsettling scores I've ever heard.  But is the film scary? Well, not to my tastes.  I found that it is not a film that attempts to generate fear, more a dreamlike atmosphere of dread and unease.  Worse, Dario is so into his visuals that he pays little heed to good acting or a non-crap script.  For example, there is one bit of exposition so clunky they actually have one expert introduce a SECOND expert so he can explain the plot to the main character.

So I found I admired the beautifully choreographed murders but was not in the least moved by them and decided not to bother with the semi-sequel "Inferno" (which they tell me makes even less sense) and the final part "Mother of Tears" (which even Dario fans seem to dislike).  

However, that's just me.  "Suspiria" routinely makes it onto "most scary films ever" lists, so please do check it out for yourself.

*  From the Italian meaning "Look out missus!!  Oooh too late!"