This Halloween gone I selected a few horror films I had yet to see to watch around the big night. The three which had priority were the Suspiria remake, Halloween 2018 and Phantasm Ravager. So Halloween was a couple of weeks gone now but let’s go back and I’ll consider my thoughts…
Suspiria remake 2018-
So this was a film which I had heard about for I think a year or two while it was in production. The very idea outraged and angered or confused many die-hard Dario Argento fans. We are talking here about a genuine classic and extremely influential (on horror films since the late seventies and even more so again in recent times) horror movie and real sensory over-load cinematic terror technicolour daydream/nightmare trip of and experience. What could or should be done to top such a unique horror movie? Why remake this particular movie?
Let’s face it, Hollywood or big studios are regularly remaking any thing which was either a big hit years ago or gained loyal cult following over time, almost garuanteeing a certain amount of financial return at cinemas-they hope. There were ways in make a different version of this Argento classic-for example, as with a good few of his films, there really is not very much going on in the story, only the basic concept of young woman goes to mysterious dance studio to train and soon enough a number of terrible things take place as the studio is run by (spoiler) witches…
The remake is make by director Luca Guadagnino, previously having made a number of philosophical arthouse films. He brings back Dakota Johnson and the reliably great Tilda Swinton from his previous film A Bigger Splash, a psychological drama. With Suspiria, and the reputation is had as arguably the most psychedelic and halucinogenic horror film he decided to take things in the opposite direction and give us a much more realistic, dense and slowly cold and sombre film which still has a sharp moments of fright.
Taking the very simplistic story elements Argento worked with, Guadagnino really draws out, expands and deepens a thick back story and sets the film in the late seventies/early eighties and gives it a tense and ominous backdrop of cold war paranoia and post war links while setting the story this time in Berlin. Was this too much?
The director had described this as his ‘homage’ to the original not just a straight remake, and this can be seen as true as he does reallu open out the concept and build upon the famous ‘Three Mothers’ idea with the infamous witches idea Dario went on to explore in his own visually highly stylized and almost operatic ways.
This Suspiria has flashbacks, flashforwards, many, many characters and a lot of detail to pay attention to during the more than two hour duration. Does it offer us too much plot and too little horror?
It is very slow moving, and very gradually builds. You may watch it wondering just when anything terrifying at all will jump from the screen but eventually we get to the dance studio and things get familiar. But then we have the dance routines…the dancing and the training does go on for a while, some people were frustrated by this. Eventually we do get a really ugly and well, twisted shocker of a scene and we’re really on our way into a deep, deadly tale. We may know where we’re going but this Suspiria is giving us different sights, sounds and details to fear all the way to the end.
It is a very long film. As a writer of horror novels, I can see how the very simple initial concept Argento used could be something very tempting to explore and dive down into to pull forth any number of alternative or elaborated versions of the original film. This director and his writer certainly have taken a good deal of time researching and considering what they could do in taking the idea to another specific time period, location and seeing what they could do by contrasting the horror and potential threat and fear of cold war and post war guilt against those found in the dance studio and the power of the formidable witches. Yes do get more witches this time, no doubt about that, and while I was going to suggest that this is more visually sadistic and gruesome and instantly remember the number of nasty and distinctly painfully elaborate death scenes from the original, though they were probably less troubling to view being so colourful and stylised in execution.
This director makes use of at this point at least two very famous actors-Tilda Swinton and Dakota Johnson, with a smaller role for Chloe Grace Moretz (Hit Girl of Kick-Ass). Does he use them well? There was probably less from Swinton that I expected, but then as usual, she only needs just a couple of scenes to steal a film almost effortlessly. Dakota Johnson was at this point now world famous for starring as female lead in the terrible but terribly successful Fifty Shades S&M film adaptations, her acting not really making any real significant impact. To be fair, I’ve seen her this and something else, and she can be quite good at times.
So while the original Suspiria pounded and screeched along almost non-stop in all the primary flashing colour as blood splattered and death screams wailed around until the credits this version moves along at a glacial pace but sitting through right along until the end does pay off as the last forty minutes or so are a big sequence of frightening shocks you probably will not be prepared for. There is a curious epilogue after the initial ending some viewers have questioned but it does make sense and adds to the muted though philosophical terror suggested by the large plot.
So this version of Suspiria may irritate, confuse or anger some horror fans. Some may find of extremely boring or tedious, too pretentious and long. What was my overall opinion after viewing the film?
This is an interesting and creative take on Argento’s previous classic using a basic dark fairy tale concept. I would possibly trim around twenty minutes from this new version but otherwise a slow moving psychological drama which builds toward an almost OTT modern Hammer Horror style bloodbath climax. Not for all horror film fans, but worth watching at least once I think, especially if you are a fan of the Argento original.
James Parsons is horror/SF author of horror novel Northern Souls, and the SF novels Orbital Kin and Minerva Century -all available now from all good bookshops and online in paperback and ebook formats.
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