Movie #82 Suspiria (1977)

Suspiria is a 1977 horror film, directed by Dario Argento, that many fanatics of that genre will tell you is among their favorite.  After watching the film I looked it up on Wikipedia and that site claims that Suspiria resides on several "Greatest Horror Movie of All Time" lists from creditable associations.  Unfortunately the reason I was looking it up was because I didn't get it at all.

Suspiria is about an American woman that goes to Germany to study ballet.  Once there she notices a lot of strange happenings.  She seems to be getting drugged so that she can't put the puzzle pieces together.  *Spoiler Alert* the ballet school is being ran by witches.  That wasn't much of a spoiler. It is mentioned in the plot synopsis on Netflix, and if you can't figure that out after about 20 minutes you are an idiot.

Where do I start reviewing this?  My first two notes were: "bold use of color" and "odd music".  I would not be lying to say that I have never heard any music like what is in Suspira.  And I am thankful for that.  I found the music to simply be loud and annoying.  The band Goblin provided this Techno-screeching soundtrack.  Then the lighting was bold, but without purpose.  I love highly stylized films, as long as the style is in service of the story.

Which brings us to another problem.  The story.  The narrative was all over the place.  It was as if the script had been ran through Google translator and back again.  The performances were ok and not as campy as I thought they were going to be after the first 20 minutes.

Mostly Argento's "master piece" committed the worst crime a horror film can commit.  It didn't scare me.  It never frightened me.  It never even made me uncomfortable.  The next day I called a friend that I would consider a horror movie expert.  I truly wanted to know what people saw in this film.  I didn't like it, but I can usually tell why a person or type of person would enjoy a film.  He told me that he had seen the film and his feelings were similar to mine.  That was a disappointment.

In closing Suspiria was apparently an important film in the Italian Horror movement of the 70's.  I also read that it was well known for it's lavish scenes of murder.  There were only a few murders in the film and I didn't think they were anything to write home about.  I drew some similarities to Kubrick's The Shining while watching this, but that film didn't open for 3 more years.  As far as praising this film for it's scares and being ahead of its time, I think I should make a note that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Rosemary's Baby had been out for years before this films opened.

I give Suspiria a 2/5 stars.  Check out the Trailer Park to see for yourself.