This year, director Luca Guadagnino released the remake of 70s-era horror film Suspiria.
Film reviewers are often victims of the present or the past. Either too caught up in the moment, or too dismissive of it. I remember walking out of an IMAX theater in Pittsburgh convinced that James Cameron’s Avatar was the greatest-ever achievement in film. I’m also hesitant to give No Country for Old Men its due because it just can’t be a classic film if it came out in my lifetime.
Context will be something history must decide, but I can see a trend when it’s right in front of my face — horror movies are getting classy.
Suspiria (2018) is a complicated movie. And it tells you from the outset that it’s going to be that way. The first title card tells you “Part 1” and the movie is divided up into six of these sections. The main story is simple enough, though, as it follows a young American girl in the 70’s seeking acceptance at a dance academy in Europe. She befriends a kind young girl and finds out about some strange goings-on among the instructors.
Suspiria (1977) also follows a young American girl in the 70’s seeking acceptance at a dance academy in Europe. She befriends a kind young girl and finds out about some strange goings-on among the instructors.
Movies are much more than their plot
This is a remake that manages to perfectly capture a tone and spirit from an original work, retell the basic story, and then add backstory and meaning and heart in places the first glossed over.
I love the history of horror. It’s my favorite genre and I spend every October watching 31 different horror movies. I wrote about the ones I saw this year over here if you want to check it out. So I’ve seen Dario Argento’s Suspiria a few times. It is beautiful and shocking, but admittedly lacking story structure and some character motivation. Which are places the remake builds rich reason and plot.
Characterization is key to this movie. I went back and checked, and they do use the same names as the original, but this movie makes you remember them. Especially the relationship between Dakota Johnson’s Susie and Tilda Swinton’s Madame Blanc. Susie is a seemingly innocent former Mennonite girl from Ohio. Madame Blanc tries to protect her from stumbling too fast into this new and dangerous world.
Plot-wise, where the original didn’t care to tell you why anything was happening, this new edition explains too much. Not in a clunky way, but in a complicated way. It is 2 hours and 32 minutes officially but can feel even longer. That could be a function of its genre. Horrors are generally kept shorter, and I did watch this amidst other tight 90 minute stories. If you are in the mood for a long twisted tale leading to an all-out assault of a climax, then this could be your style.
And if that’s your style, then you are in luck. This movie is much more similar to The VVitch or this year’s Hereditary than that movie from the 70’s with which it shares a name. It’s a similar brand of horror that uses a dark uneasiness to build to a climax that twists and screams and bleeds all over everything you thought you were watching for the whole film. It is in that climactic moment that you realize just how much horror can be released after hours of suspense. It is a long and, at times boring, journey to get there, but these are endings that will stand as iconic in years to come.
Or at least, I think they will.
And that’s what we don’t know. Horror is prone to trends. Slashers, meta-slashers, found footage, etc, and still; as each sub-genre tries to stand on the shoulders of previous success, there are others creeping up beneath. There is room for all types in this scary world. So if the art-house horror of Suspiria isn’t your jam, there is another movie in theaters carrying the name of a 70’s horror classic that you might enjoy.
