by: Letitia
Posted on 11.24.09 in All Horror Films > Giallo
Release Date: 1977

Dario Argento’s masterpiece, Suspiria, relies almost completely on atmosphere—color, music, and setting—to create a sense of horror. Of course, there is gore (this is an Argento movie, after all), but the gore has a stylistic, high-contrast, hyper-real quality that does the opposite of what gore in movies usually does. Suspiria’s violence doesn’t make the viewer want to turn away—it makes the viewer stare, guilty that they do not even want to look away. The famous opening scenes, which involve a high concept, multi-step murder, are terrifying mostly because they are so beautiful. It’s impossible to not admire the scene, at least aesthetically.

When brutality against the body is elevated to the level of art, the viewer is put in an uncomfortable position—instead of sympathizing with the victim, we are left admiring the visual presentation of a murder scene. Argento uses our discomfort with brutality and our attraction to the beautiful to create a nightmarish piece of art.

Suspiria has a very simple plot. A young American ballerina named Suzy Bannion arrives in Germany to attend the Freiburg Dance Academy. Her plane arrives late at night during a supernaturally intense downpour. Suzy arrives at the school just in time to see a young woman fleeing the school, mumbling to herself. Susie is not allowed inside and ends up leaving in the downpour. At this point, the camera leaves Suzy and follows the girl fleeing the school. As we follow the ill-fated girl into a strange apartment building with an ornate stained-glass dome, the famous score by the Goblins, a pulsing synthesizer beat of breathing, screaming, whispering, and wheezing, creates an almost unbearable tension.

In these first thirty minutes, it’s clear that Argento’s use of color and music are the real stars of Suspiria—blues and reds saturate the movie, creating a surreal, baroque atmosphere. The film moves in dreamy, sometimes disconnected, vignettes. But plot is not the point here, and it’s no surprise who wins, who loses, and how the movie ends. The script and the acting also aren’t the point—this is not a psychological horror movie, not the kind of film that reveals our latent fears about power, sexuality, pleasure, and pain. The young actresses in this film don’t display any real curiosity about the activities in the school. Unlike more contemporary horror films with all-female leads, such as Gingersnaps and The Descent, female sexuality is not what interests Argento. Argento is interested in aesthetics—color, elegance, and pageantry of the body.

Suspiria is not a movie for a viewer looking to get a political, social, or feminist message from their horror film. The primary point of ambiguity in the film lies in our reaction to the murders as viewers. What does it mean to admire the murder of a beautiful, young woman? In fact, the murders in Suspiria don’t feel like murders at all—the victims are not round characters that we sympathize with or feel any emotion towards, and even our heroine, Suzy, is not particularly interesting (which is perhaps why she is given the blandest of American names). The young women in this film are palates for Argento to create his bloody scenes. And those scenes are of such dream-like, nightmarish beauty, that it would be a shame to miss them because they don’t come with a lesson or message.

• ★★★★★

  Acting:

• ★★★★★

  Blood:

• ★★★★★

  Violence:

• ★★★★★

  Partying:

• ★★★★★

  Language:

• ★★★★★

  Humor:

• ★★★★★

  Predictable:

• ★★★★★

  Girls:

• ★★★★★

  Gore:

• ★★★★★

  Sexuality:

• ★★★★★

  Torture:

• ★★★★★

  Overall:

The character of Suzy might not be interesting, but she is certainly strong. The films of Argento are littered with strong and independent minded young women. By and large the male characters are weak and ineffectual. One could argue that Argento offers a progressive view of gender representations. Rarely are his heroines reduced to the formula of the final girl seen in slasher films. Suspiria is one of the few 1970's horror films in which masculine patriarchy is subservient.