Review: Suspiria (2018)

[Mark Leeper]

SUSPIRIA (2018)
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: An American girl from Ohio gets an opportunity
to study at a prestigious dance academy in Germany. She
jumps at the prospect in spite of being told that the
women who run the school are actually witches. This is
a remake of the 1977 classic horror film directed by
Dario Argento. This version, directed by Luca Guadagnino,
expands on the original offering generous slices of
performance of modern (well, 1977) dance. Some sequences
offer beautiful art while others are ponderous and slow.
There is a good deal of nudity. Dakota Johnson plays
the main character, Susie Bannion. Tilda Swinton
co-stars and Jessica Harper, the star of SUSPIRIA (1977),
is somewhere in the new film. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or
7/10

The original 1977 version of SUSPIRIA had quite a decent response
from American horror film fans, though I myself was ambivalent. In
this film an American dance student is barely in the doors of her
new dance academy when she starts hearing strange rumors that the
women who run the school are actually witches. She of course is
skeptical but that is just one of several lines of conflict
occurring at the school and outside. The teaching 1977 is the time
of the Baader Meinhof terrorists and inside the school. The
filmmakers let us in on some competing theories of dance. And
saved for the last part of the film, the discussion shifts to the
Holocaust. It does create a feeling of menace that hangs over the
viewer. Both versions of the film have much the same surreal
quality.

The new film is bigger and more colorful than was the original
film. Director Guadagnino spends the time to show the audience a
nice sample of Damien Jalet's brand of choreography. And that is a
plus which elevates the film. It also shows that somebody in the
production cared about a little more than just shocking the viewer.
Meanwhile the story is told in frequently long and tedious takes.
Not all of the plot makes sense. Some of the scenes go past faster
than the eye can parse them. Overall at over two and a half hours
the story does drag.

I rate it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10. SUSPIRIA (2018) was
released by Amazon Studios last October in the US.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034415/reference>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/suspiria_2018>


Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 2018 Mark R. Leeper