Suspiria
1977 Directed by Dario Argento
Synopsis
The Most Frightening Film You'll Ever See!
A newcomer to a fancy ballet academy gradually comes to realize that the staff of the school are actually a coven of witches bent on chaos and destruction.
Cast
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This is a special brand of horror. It is not only disturbing, it is also a film of terrorizing beauty.
From the moment you hear the first notes of the phenomenal soundtrack, this film gets under your skin with a unique, off- kilter style that doesn't give in. That first murder sequence still gets to me.
The thing with this film is that, despite that it's graphic, that's not where its true horror lies. It lies in the pervasive sense of wrongness. Argento manages this by a couple of things.
First of all his use of color is spectacular. They are sometimes subtly present, sometimes in full effect, but they are always unrealistic and that serves its purpose really well.…
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Are there any hardcore horror fans who do not know of Italian auteur Dario Argento? I doubt it. The staunchest follower of the genre who might not be keen on this style of filmmaking from Italy including the work of this visual director and the like i.e. Lucio Fulci and maybe have not even seen one of Argento’s movies would have for damn sure glanced over articles about the bodies of work of him and his contemporaries. You cannot pick up any of the various magazines like Fangoria, Horror Hound and Rue Morgue without at least a mention of this horror icon. Even the most casual audiences of scary films might have heard the name of this revered filmmaker from…
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A sumptuous, decadent, audio-visual feast. There are colours in this movie that I didn't even know could be captured on film. This film is indulgent in the best way, clearly the product of someone so deliriously in love with a mood and aesthetic that no consideration can supersede them, and the feeling is contagious. It's really not very scary, sometimes hilariously so, and the plot is nonsensical and episodic, but it works just as a piece of pure cinema. It's a rare film that so boldly and confidently leaves behind all notions of 'natural' and 'realistic,' and carries itself entirely on the strength of photographic craft.
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(30 Days 30 Countries Challenge; Day 5- Italy)
On paper Suspiria looks like the most generic horror movie you could possibly have, but two key factors elevate it beyond mediocrity.
The first thing is the superb surrealist direction by Dairo Argento, it's easy to see why this is still a highly regarded film. The set design is both beautiful and extremely unsettling, as is the unnatural colored lighting he uses throughout much of the film. The cinematography is fantastic, it is a very nice film to look at.
The second thing is the soundtrack, composed by Goblin. When any song from the soundtrack kicks in, it brings the mood of the film from campy horror to feeling like Satan himself…
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Some directors make good films. Some make great films. And some make films so intoxicatingly outlandish that they haunt your every waking moment.
Dario Argento's Suspiria is definitely one of the latter.
From the opening murders (themselves a grisly tableau soundtracked by a demented, howling Goblin score) to the final, screaming crescendo, Suspiria is an exhilarating descent into a waking nightmare.
Much has been said about the decline of Argento's recent output, and rightly so. But when you have this as a calling card, everything else pales in comparison.
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A candy-coated, horribly-acted nightmare. The only reason I rated this film above two stars is because of the lighting, set design, and music. Everything else is pretty much shit. The acting is awful, the storyline is predictable and boring, and holy shit that professor guy knows nothing about witches. BUT--this film is gorgeous. I want to live in the set design and get married and have thousands of children there who would eventually grow up and here's the kicker, they're actually a race of mutant maggot men and I could run my terrifying kingdom from that awesome ballet school.
Yep, this is probably the most reasonable dream I've ever had.
P.S. dat theme song hnnnng
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it's dated, over the top and peppered with appalling dialogue, but who cares when it's this fun?
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Are there any hardcore horror fans who do not know of Italian auteur Dario Argento? I doubt it. The staunchest follower of the genre who might not be keen on this style of filmmaking from Italy including the work of this visual director and the like i.e. Lucio Fulci and maybe have not even seen one of Argento’s movies would have for damn sure glanced over articles about the bodies of work of him and his contemporaries. You cannot pick up any of the various magazines like Fangoria, Horror Hound and Rue Morgue without at least a mention of this horror icon. Even the most casual audiences of scary films might have heard the name of this revered filmmaker from…
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35mm.
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Well it definitely passes the eye test and is creepy at times, plus there's a good Goblin score, but Suspiria's plot is just too shallow for me. The acting isn't very good either. Why make a film that looks like this one does without a good story behind it? If Suspiria had a better plot and some better acting, it could have been a really good horror film. I very much preferred Argento's Deep Red to this.
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Wow what a gorgeous film. Some of the best cinematography and set design I have ever seen. Argento used old-school 3-strip technicolor on parts of this film, which is the coloring technique they used in early color films, most notably wizard of oz, and based the color scheme off of Snow White's. The amazing, almost cartoonish colors and strange and elaborate sets give this film a really weird feel, especially when juxtaposed with the really gory violence.
The whole film has a dreamlike/nightmarelike vibe. The film originally was supposed to be centered around 12 year old girls, but the studios wouldn't allow it. Instead of rewriting the script to be for 20-somethings, Argento kept it exactly the same and had…
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(30 Days 30 Countries Challenge; Day 5- Italy)
On paper Suspiria looks like the most generic horror movie you could possibly have, but two key factors elevate it beyond mediocrity.
The first thing is the superb surrealist direction by Dairo Argento, it's easy to see why this is still a highly regarded film. The set design is both beautiful and extremely unsettling, as is the unnatural colored lighting he uses throughout much of the film. The cinematography is fantastic, it is a very nice film to look at.
The second thing is the soundtrack, composed by Goblin. When any song from the soundtrack kicks in, it brings the mood of the film from campy horror to feeling like Satan himself…
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Dario Argento says in the documentary affixed to the DVD that he wanted to follow an old Sam Goldwyn tenet of "starting with a crescendo and building from there". Mission completed. Even the arrival of the main character from America to the Bavarian airport has a chilling tone, that rolls downhill picking up size and momentum, and creating its own style; which I would call gothic-hysterical. I had technical issues; in that I was adjusting the tv's volume throughout; trying to hear the dialogue, which was mouse quiet, but then turning it right down when the soundtrack came in. Very apt that this film came out in 1977. This was punk. Once I had come to terms with the "immensity"…
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Amazing cinematographer and use of colour, but gory violence is not what makes a horror movie scary, so the terrible,plot & dialogue and over the top violence makes this a weak film.
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The colors, the Goblin soundtrack score, the death scenes, the visuals, the mystery, the fun, even the plot holes, illogicalness and other minor problems make this movie perfect. One of my all time favorites. Dario Argento's classic.