A young American ballet student comes to a German dance school only to discover a coven of witches in Dario Argento’s horror classic.
Germany, late 1970s: Suzy Bannion is admitted to a famous dance academy in Freiburg, but upon her arrival discovers that something dark is going on at the school: maggots fall from the ceiling, strange creatures creep into windows, and students die in horrible ways one after another.
To a contemporary viewer, the original Suspiria might seem too simple in comparison to Luca Guadagnino’s remake. Where Guadagnino clearly speaks of feminism, politics, psychoanalysis, and twentieth-century traumas, Argento chooses to leave things unspoken. But this simplicity is deliberate. Inspired by Walt Disney’s Snow White, Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, and German expressionism, Argento and his team created a modern-day fairy tale, where logic is secondary to the beauty of color, shadows, and movement. One of the key examples of the Italian giallo, Argento’s Suspiria has been hailed by critics as a triumph of pure cinema.
Suspiria
Director: Dario Argento
Italy, 1977. 98 min. 18+
