The Film (5/5)

Jessica Harper plays Suzy Banyon, a ballet student, who travels to Germany to study at the world-renowned Tanz Dance Academy. Naturally, the school is run by a coven of witches, as is required by law in most European countries. This would all be fine except Suzy is a gauche American who overreacts to such things and her friend Sara (Stefania Casini) is super judgy about the directress’s sleep apnea. I guess the brutal murders going on are sort of a problem but I still think these girls are way out of line with their snooping around the school. And isn’t counting someone’s footsteps a huge invasion of privacy?

After reaching dizzying heights with his giallo masterwork, Deep Red, director Dario Argento and his girlfriend (and star of Deep Red) Daria Nicolodi decided to take a distinctly supernatural path with his next film, Suspiria. Their screenplay is based on the stories of Nicolodi’s grandmother who attended a music school in Europe that was supposedly run by witches, the writings of Thomas De Quincy, and dark elements of children’s fairy tales. Armed with the bizarre music of progressive rock band Goblin (Agostino Marangolo, Massimo Morante, Fabio Pignatelli, and Claudio Simonetti) and stunning cinematography of Luciano Tovoli, Argento and company made something truly special. It isn’t fair to just highlight such a small part of the fantastic crew behind Suspiria but Scott pays me by the word and I don’t want to bankrupt EurocultAV.

The statuesque Joan Bennett (The Woman in the Window) plays Madame Blanc, the vice-directress (thank you for that job title, Wikipedia) of the academy. She plays it cool old Hollywood style and her voice when she’s witching it up at the end of the film makes my skin crawl. Even more imposing -speaking of old Hollywood- is Alida Valli (The Third Man) who plays Miss Tanner, the dance instructor who carries herself like a female golem and chews the scenery like a shark with rabies.

Jessica Harper, who was spotted by Argento in Phantom of the Paradise (1974), plays the bewildered but quick-witted Suzy with aplomb. Her reaction to these strange circumstances and her eccentric fellow students is endearing and rather funny. Stefania Casini is also excellent as Suzy’s only friend in the school. Sara is a character that gets dealt a very bad hand, to say the least, and it really bums me out the more I think about it. Another character at the school and the one voted most likely to be a student witch is Olga, played by the comely Barbara Magnolfi. She has very little screentime but makes the most of it.

I can't imagine what it was like to be a cinema goer when Suspiria came out. It combines colors and sounds in a way that the horror genre had never seen or heard before. It's still startling 40 years later and there hasn't been a film quite like it since. Not even the director himself could replicate the lightning-in-a-bottle magic in his subsequent films. Of course, I don’t want to sound like I don’t love nearly everything in Argento’s filmography but not even this film’s direct sequel, Inferno, has as much going for it as Suspiria.

This film flipped a switch in my mind that will never be shut off. It made me into a different type of viewer. I found myself enjoying and seeking out films with broken or fairy tale-like narratives and films that are aurally and visually challenging above all else. Horror didn’t need to make sense anymore and if it made me laugh out loud when I wasn’t sure if I wasn’t supposed to be laughing then that was cool too.

Audio/Video (5/5)

While other films of Dario Argento were getting impressive Blu-rays, Suspiria was conspicuously absent from the format. Well, the result was absolutely worth the wait. Luciano Tovoli himself supervised the color correction and it really shows. I noticed details that my old Anchor Bay DVD just couldn’t show. For instance, I never noticed the killer wearing all black hiding from Sara waiting to strike before. Amazing. The audio mix is explosive in both American (LCRS sound mix) and Italian (5.1 surround mix) versions of the film. Home video collectors, I don’t know about you but this release is making me feel very spoiled right now.

Extras (4/5)

Between the two audio commentaries, one from visual effects artist Derek Botelho and journalist David Del Valle and a solo track from author Troy Howarth, there’s a ton of information about Suspiria. I prefer the commentaries to the documentary on the film called A Sigh from the Depths: 40 Years of Suspiria. This one is just too dry for my tastes. The visual essay by Michael Mackenzie is my favorite of all the extras. He really nails it. Also on the disc is another visual essay called Suzy in Nazi Germany, talking about some of the German locations and their dark history.

One thing I find funny is that no one seems to agree if some of Argento’s and Nicolodi’s inspiration came from Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an Opium Eater (1822) or Suspiria de Profundis (1845). Another bit of contention is whether or not cinematographer Luciano Tovoli used the three strip Technicolor process to capture the vibrant colors of Suspiria. These conflicting opinions are both laughable and irritating.

There’s an interview with Barbara Magnolfi who must be a witch because she never ages. The disc comes with the English “Breathing Letters” credits for the US market. These have to be seen to be believed. The original Italian and English credits are here as well. This release also has a bunch of trailers and TV spots, including the bonkers “roses are red” American trailer. There is also some very stately reversible cover art by Joel Robinson.

Overall

The monumental amount of work that went into bringing this film to screen is just staggering to me. From the production standpoint alone, this is a masterpiece that never gets old. The staggering creativity of Nicolodi’s and Argento’s imaginations and the deft casting makes this more than just a pretty film. Normally, I try not to overhype a film while reviewing it but Suspiria really is that good.