Day One: Suspiria

So last night I snuggled up to my blanky and my dark home theater for the first day in my lonely horror-fest. I thought I would watch a movie that I have not seen in a while. Suspiria is one of those films that upon first viewing seems very campy, but upon subsequent views becomes a very engaging and powerful film. The story opens with an American dance student arriving in Germany to attend a dance school when all sorts of craziness and horror begin unfolding.

One of the best things about the film is the vivid imagery and use of colors. I swear that M. Night Shymalangadingdong must have taken extensive notes on Argento's use of light and color to accentuate a mood and scene within a film. The color red has a very powerful presence within Suspiria that often times makes you want to check your television color settings, but ultimately gives the viewer a feeling of anxiousness and paranoia.

You will have a hard time trying to find a movie with as much randomness as Suspiria. The movie pulls you in and out of scenes quickly to create a confusion, but then drags out scenes to create tension and suspense. It is almost as if you are being given a virtual sense of schizophrenia through the use of editing and musical score. Argento uses music to help heighten the uneasiness within each scene by providing scenes completely void of music when regular plot items are occurring, then pouring on the psychedelic Goblins score to an extreme level whenever something is about to occur.

In short, the acting is definitely sub-par and the story is pretty basic, but the imagery and direction of the film is outstanding enough to hoist this movie into my top ten horror films. It seems every time I watch this movie my appreciation for it increases and it overtakes another movie on my top ten list.

For those of you that like to see younger versions of actors they have seen in popular movies, a bonus is that it has a much younger Udo Kier (pictured left) in the movie playing a psychiatrist, and if you do not know who this is, he is Ron Camp in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.

Check Out Suspiria Reviews Here