Suzy Banyon decided to perfect her ballet studies in the most famous school of dance in Europe. She chose the celebrated Tanzakademie of Freiburg. One day at 9 am, she left Kennedy airport, New York, and arrived in Germany at 10:40 local time.
The opening preamble of Suspiria


Here in this film, we have still another example of style over substance. Can a film with an incoherent plot, a lot of pointless gore, poor acting in the secondary roles, and poor dubbing really be an above average film? It's a fair question, but so too is its antithesis: can a film with magnificent surreal sets, a lush color palette produced via the three-strip Technicolor process, a strong lead performance, a vibrantly pulsating rock score, and a fairytale quality not be intriguing? Suspiria is arguably the preeminent masterpiece of horror specialist Dario Argento, who asserts unabashedly, "I would rather see a beautiful girl killed than an ugly girl or a man." I won't bother to point out the obvious dangers in that kind of mentality, especially for beautiful women.

Historical Background: Dario Argento was born in 1943 in Rome. His father was film producer Salvatore Argento, so Dario's pathway into the film industry was well marked. He began as a screenwriter, collaborating on action-adventure films including the famous spaghetti Western, Once Upon a Time in the West. When he turned to directing in the late sixties, he soon established himself as something of a specialist in sensational gore and terror fare and gained something of a cult following. His breakout film was The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970). Other notable successes included The Cat o'Nine Tails (1971), Deep Red (1976), Suspiria (1977), Inferno (1979), Tenebrae (1982), Demons (1985), Opera (1987), and The Phantom of the Opera (1999). Suspiria is often cited as his best work. It has been described as the first segment of a trilogy pertaining to über-witches, of which Inferno was the second installment and the third remains to be completed, though a script for it is said to exist. Argento is also father of the gorgeous Asia Argento.

The Story: The broad contours of the storyline are straight forward enough, though some of the specifics are blatantly illogical and incoherent. The story begins, as the preamble indicates, with an attractive young ballet student, Suzy (Jessica Harper), arriving in Germany for advanced training at the highly regarded Tanz Akadamie of Dance. No sooner does she pass through the automatic doors at the German airport to hail a taxi than she encounters a torrential downpour. When her cab arrives at the Akadamie, Suzy spies another female student, Pat (Eva Axen), rushing from the building in obvious terror, screaming some final anguished words, of which all but "secret" and "iris" are unheard by Suzy and by viewers. Suzy rings the bell at the door of the school, but is turned away by a voice over the intercom. She has to return to town in the taxi and as they drive away, Suzy spies Pat running wildly through the Black Forest, which is composed of giant trees. Pat finds refuge, or so she thinks, in the outrageously garish apartment of a friend. In her bedroom, Pat is inexorably drawn toward the window, where a hand suddenly reaches through the glass and seizes her by the neck. In an amazing gory scene, Pat is stabbed repeatedly, the finally directly into the heart of her opened chest cavity, before being hung, and dropped through a sky window atop the apartment's living room. All the while, the friend is screaming, first while trying to get into the bedroom and later at the sight of Pat's mangled and bloody body hanging from the ceiling. The friend's head is cut open by falling shards of glass. Keep in mind that we're still in the film's first half-hour!

In the morning, Suzy returns to the Akademie, which is in something of an uproar because of the murder the preceding night of Pat, a student who had just been expelled. Suzy meets the head mistress, Madame Blanc (Joan Bennett), and a harsh taskmaster of a teacher, Miss Tanner (Alida Valli). Madame Blanc, in the manner of Snow White's step-mother, comments enviously, "You're pretty, very pretty indeed." Suzy is introduced as well to the other girls of the Akadamie, including the churlish Olga (Barbara Magnolfi) and another wench, who does an imitation of Mata Hari. Only Sara (Stefania Casini), among her fellow students is immediately friendly to Suzy, and soon the two become roommates. The Akademie's main building is something of an architectural wonder, with ghoulish carvings, spiral stairwells, and long, angular hallways, all bathed in fantastic colors. Suzy soon finds herself hallucinating ghostly figures in the haunted hallways.

When it comes time for the first dance session, Suzy is feeling dizzy and begs to be excused. Miss Tanner will hear none of her excuses, however, and forces Suzy to perform with the others, until she passes out from a nosebleed. Later, in their rooms for the evening, the girls suddenly encounter a hoard of maggots falling from the ceiling, apparently having overrun the attic.

The piano instructor of the school is a blind man named Daniel (Flavio Bucci). After his seeing-eye dog supposedly takes a nip at Madame Blanc's little, fair-haired nephew, Miss Tanner is sent to fire Daniel and send him packing. She cruelly tosses Daniel's cane and forces him to search for it. After leaving the school, Daniel wanders into a large, open courtyard and is attacked and killed by his own dog, presumably under the influence of some spell. The dog literally rips the man's throat open.

Meanwhile, Sara and Suzy hear weird voices and footsteps through the walls of their room. Sara, who had been friends with Pat before her murder, tries to enlist Suzy into helping to solve the mystery, but has trouble wakening her, Suzy having apparently been drugged. Sara wanders into some off-limits rooms and is soon being stalked by one of the Akademie's murderous henchmen. Trapped in a room with the murderer slowly sawing his way through the lock, Sara manages to escape through a high window by stacking up some suitcases, but lands in another small room filled with barbed-wire. She becomes entangled and in her fury to extricate herself, slashes herself to death.

Suzy, with her roommate now missing, calls up an old friend of Sara's, a psychiatrist, Dr. Mandel (Udo Kier). He pooh-poohs Suzy's fears but introduces her to Professor Milius, an expert on the occult. Suzy learns that the Akademie had been founded by a famous Greek-born über-witch, Helena Marcos, who was ultimately burned at the stake. The facility had only later been turned into a dance academy. With this background, Suzy becomes more determined than ever to solve the mystery and destroy the hovel of witches. She discovers a blue iris and, recalling a few more of Pat's words from when Suzy first arrived at the Akademie, gains entrance to the inner chamber of the witches. Why a unarmed girl in a nightgown would want access to the inner chamber of a witch hovel eludes me, but she presses on. How the story plays out from there you'll want to discover for yourself. It ain't pretty!

Production Values: The script for Suspiria was based loosely on an essay by Thomas de Quincey entitled Suspiria de Profundis and relating to three mother witches known as the Mother of Sighs, the Mother of Darkness, and the Mother of Tears. Suspiria tells the story of the first of the three mothers while Inferno deals with the second. Argento also stated that he drew elements from a number of fairytales, including Cinderella, Snow White, and Alice in Wonderland. Certainly one can see shades of wicked stepsisters, poisoned apples, and white rabbits.

Nothing about this film is subtle. From the very beginning, we are greeted by a title bar formed out of pulsating organs. Every conceivable tactic is pulled out of the horror film bag, with something of a comic book style absurdity. Suspiria is more a campy variety of horror film than the real article. As a viewer, I'm neither especially squeamish nor the toughest kind of macho guy around. The films that I find most horrifying are ones that build tension slowly, starting from a base of realism. A horror film that bears no relationship to reality may be funny and possibly even entertaining for me, but will not evoke any genuine fear. Suspiria is so over the top that it comes across mainly as a mockery of the horror genre rather than a truly scary film. One non sequitur follows on the heels of another, dissipating tension. Argento said that he wanted to make the strongest possible impact. He hoped to start Suspiria where "normal" horror films usually finish, so that the audience would keep wondering what more could possibly happen. Instead, the film makes little impact. One problem is that Argento never quite manages to match the horror of the first murder as the film goes on and the film's ending is especially anticlimactic.

As far as I can surmise, what horror fans most require from horror films is pretty and vulnerable young women or girls screaming mightily. Jessica Harper is uncommonly effective as the requisite ingénue She has a strong resume that includes performances in Stardust Memories (1980), for Woody Allen, Pennies from Heaven (1981), and My Favorite Year (1982). Harper would most likely have starred in Annie Hall instead of Diane Keaton had she not chosen Suspiria instead. Argento also got a fine performance from Stefani Casini, whose other work includes The Belly of an Architect (1987). Her struggle in the barbed wire scene is not especially convincing, but she was effective in her tête à tête scenes with Harper. A couple of old regulars appear here in bit parts. Udo Kier, who plays Dr. Mandel in the present film, was better known for his role in Andy Warhol's Dracula (1974). He also appeared in Lili Marleen (1981), Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), Breaking the Waves (1996), and Dancer in the Dark (2000). Joan Bennett, who plays the head mistress here, had a strong career, when she was much younger, in such films as Disraeli (1929), Little Women (1933), The Man in the Iron Mask (1939), Woman in the Window (1945), Scarlet Street (1945), and The Macomber Affair (1947). Alida Valley, who plays Miss Tanner, appeared in The Third Man (1949).

Still and all, there's no chance I'd be writing about this film if not for the visual wonders of the sets and cinematography. That's pretty much all that raises this film above a two-star rating. The set design is spectacular, providing a richly surreal atmosphere. The color scheme adds immeasurably to the mood as well, featuring hot reds and deep blues. The lighting is eerily dark throughout, except for Suzy's meeting with Dr. Mandel and Professor Milius, where light gets thrown on the mystery, both literally and figuratively. There're a lot of odd camera angles to intensify the sense that things are askew. The extraordinary visual appearance of the film gives a sense of having fallen down Alice's rabbit hole.

The soundtrack is another strong point of the film. It's pulsating rock music comes courtesy of the band Goblin. The music doesn't really add anything to the horror or suspense, but is entertaining enough. The English soundtrack is dubbed and mostly poorly. Harper, an American actress, did her own English dubbing and comes across quite natural, but the other performers had to be dubbed by English speaking stand-ins.

Bottom-Line: There're multiple options when purchasing this film, but you'll definitely want to go with the DVD from Anchor Bay, which is digitally remastered, providing superior video and sound. The lovely colors lost much of their brilliance in previous VHS and DVD editions. Previous versions were also frequently censored, but the Anchor Bay version is complete. Anchor Bay released a special 25th anniversary edition consisting of three disks and loads of extras, including a 70-minute documentary about Argento's films directed by Argento protégé Michele Soavi. Then there's a music video by Daemonia as well as trailers, TV and radio spots, cast and crew biographies, and an image gallery. You can save yourself a few bucks by purchasing the single-DVD version from Anchor Bay. It provides all of the same extras except the two long ones: the documentary and the music video. Suspiria has a running time of 96 minutes and optional dubbed sound tracks in English, Italian, or French.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age