Continuing our mini-Horror Fest, tonight I watched an Italian import that made quite a splash when it was released in 1977. I am talking about "Suspiria", which made a name for it's director Dario Argento. "Suspiria" was a must-see movie for horror fans at the time, my friends and I all went to see it, and before I sat down tonight to watch it for a second time, 42 years later, I tried to remember what my reaction had been after the initial viewing. To be honest, I couldn't remember much about the film, only that it was bloody and had a lot of color. I recalled that it had "a look", but I couldn't remember anything of the story, other than that it had a "slasher" element.
Upon watching it again tonight, I think my memory (or lack thereof) of that first screening represented how I felt after my second go-round with the film.
The thing with "Suspiria" (and keep in mind I am talking about the original 1977 version) is that it looks incredible. If art direction, production design and color cinematography were the sole criteria of what makes a great horror film, then "Suspiria" would be in the Top Five in the horror genre, maybe even higher. Argento uses lurid colors, mostly blues and reds, to amazing effect, and he switches his color schemes even as a scene progresses. It's as if he has a rock concert lighting company working on his film, only instead of highlighting musicians on stage, they are backlighting a major-league scare show. The colors change and blend, and spots are lit to define moments of tension.
The other thing Argento (or his production designer) does, is to use a lot of fabrics and patterns, to add texture and to diffuse the light. Wallpaper is elaborate, sheer drapery blows in the breeze that gusts through open windows.
(don't any of these knuckleheads know that you never leave a window open in a horror movie?!)
To be sure, the sets are gaudy and gothic, but this is one instance where deeply saturated color works well in a horror movie. Put simply, you have never seen a movie, horror or otherwise, that looks like "Suspiria". If only the story was equally worthy of such accolades, Argento might've had a classic on his hands. Now, a lot of fans do consider this movie to be classic. It has a 7.7 rating on IMDB, enormous for a 42 year old horror film. But in reading some of the reviews, I see also that more than a few fans agree with my assessment, which is that the story is very thin.
This is probably why, in the long run of 42 years between viewings, I remembered none of the plot, and not even the setting. I only remembered the style.
Jessica Harper plays a young American ballet student set to attend an exclusive dance school in Germany. She arrives there in a blinding rainstorm, the spooky effects on display from the get-go. At the schoolhouse, an old German mansion, she is not exactly welcomed with open arms. In fact, she is told to get lost, they've never even heard of her. She leaves, puzzled, to spend her first night in a hotel, but not before she witnesses another girl depart from the mansion in a hurry. This girl, also a dance student, looks scared. Jessica Harper is so concerned about her own misunderstood arrangement, however, that the next morning, when she is accepted into the school by the "directress", her memory of the runaway girl has become an afterthought.
Now she is one of the elite students of Miss Tanner the dance instructor, a soul-crushing Virago if there ever was one. She is played by Alida Valli, who you may have seen opposite Joseph Cotten in Carol Reed's "The Third Man". Here she is much older but no less formidable. But even she is no match for The Directress, played by Golden Age star Joan Bennett, also much older now.
These two ladies have something up their sleeves that they don't want to talk about, which becomes a problem as other folks go missing from the school, including a blind man and his dog. The man was Miss Tanner's pianist.
Director Argento must have been extremely pleased when he walked into the studio and saw his sets and lighting for the first time, so it's not a stretch to assume that he loosened the slack on the screenplay in order to concentrate on the visuals.
For the first hour, the story is little more than a slasher whodunit. If not for the artistic razamatazz, I might not have made it through to the end. But in the last 25 minutes, a storyline does begin to develop, and as it gathers steam, so does the potential for a satisfying climax. I won't tell you what that entails, but it does build to an ending worthy of the film's lofty artistic goals.
Jessica Harper is onscreen throughout, and carries the movie with wide-eyed expression. There are certain scenes and set pieces that stand alone in the midst of the picture, that simply for their "look" could be used as separate short videos to summarise the Argento technique.
Hugely effective is the soundtrack, featuring music by the Italian progressive band Goblin. They went on to score other Argento movies, too and in "Suspiria" he combines their keyboard based work with "Exorcist" - like sounds to achieve maximum spookyness.
There are sections of extreme gore in "Suspiria", and for that reason I cannot give it a wholehearted recommendation for every viewer. I myself blanched at certain close-ups. There are images that at 59 years of age I just don't need to see anymore. They were okay when I was seventeen, but I've seen them now, many times, and I gave up on the gore factor years ago. Nowdays I want intelligent, preferably supernatural horror.
For it's visual and sonic artistry I will give "Suspiria" Two Huge Thumbs Up. It is a must see for those qualities. But for it's story it gets but a mere Single Thumb from me. Things improve in the plot as it nears the end, but too much time is wasted. Overall, if you are a fan of extreme horror, you definitely want to see this movie. Watch it on Halloween, in fact, for maximum effect. But know going in that you won't be getting an involving story, and instead watch "Suspiria" for how it looks and sounds, which may have been Dario Argento's intention anyway. /////
That's all I know for tonight. I sure hope the air quality in the Valley will improve tomorrow. It has been hard to breathe for the past two days, and really, for me it has come close to making me sick. We are having an inversion which is keeping the ozone trapped down low where we breathe, and it's just pure poison. Fingers are crossed for an improvement.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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