Suspiria 1977

This is one of those cult classic Horror movies that every hardcore fan says you have to see to earn your stripes. I can see some of the reasons for its must-see status. I really like Jessica Harper. She's fantastic and she creates a character that is extremely likable and easy to root for. The visuals are pretty strange but I can't call them impressive. There are some very odd architectural flourishes and some interesting lighting. There's no doubt that some of the artistic decisions of "Suspiria" influenced other movies that came later. But the movie had a cheapness to it. Visually it kept reminding me of "Phantasm" and I don't have a good explanation for that.

The opening murder scene that features the repeated stabbing and then hanging of a student is very violent. It's not the brief quick or jump cut type of killing you see in most slasher movies. This is an extended attack and it is brutal. There was also a scene with a victim jumps into a room to escape an attacker only to find the room is filled with wire! Creatively gruesome to say the least.

"Suspiria" wasn't scary but it was horrific at times. As silly as this sounds, some of the snoring and grunting noises from what was ultimately the most evil character struck me as being creepy. The biggest drawback was the story which most times made little sense. It just seemed like a lot of things happened for no particular reason.

I watched this and the "remake" back to back, seeing how people complained about how the "remake" wasn't anything like the original (true) and how it was so awful in comparison (... I'll get to that).

All right.

First off, the composition and directing is incredible. Such neo noir vibes right from the start.
The musical score is crazy and loud. People must have complained in the theatres about three volume though. It’s so much louder than the spoken lines. This creates quite some dissonance, which I am sure is just about intended. And it seems typical Goblin.

The colours are impeccable though. That whole scene of the first deaths ... lovely. As it cuts to a blind man devoid of colours both inside and out - fantastic.

Yet already at this point I don’t see how people can actually compare the two, as they pretty much are two entirely different films. It's only that they took a general idea, and some names, and imho made a modern masterwork out of ... well, this.

The one thing I find comparable at this point, while the styles of directing are so different a comparison doesn’t seem fair, the acting is definitely better in the remake.
Yes, women screaming senselessly into the camera used to be a thing. Yes, "overacting" used to be a thing. But most of the characters in this seem like puppets rather than actual people, and that's a choice, not just "how the style is", as there's films of the same era, same genre, where it's done oh so much better.

A few points made along the way: spoilers here
- The original Blanc talks way too much and has way less charisma.
- The number of men is already disturbing and seems only be serving to distract from a plot (wait... there is one? ... Okay, sure there is one. But then cut to the new Suspiria, and there's a whole layer of plots. Come on, now.)
- I enjoy classical ballet far less than modern dance. And we get like, what, one or two scenes of them actually dancing in this one? DANCE is no part of the plot at all, while in New-Suspiria it DRIVES the plot.
- I do not appreciate how weak Susie is depicted versus that strong willed person she is from the start on the remake. Her first moments on the dance floor are basically “oh no I’m woozy I don’t think I can do this simple step” versus “I can dance this thing you’ve trained for for months and I will show you how good I am, rawr!”
- Depicting or alluding to the seemingly senseless abuse of both animals and the physically impaired is pretty bad taste.

While I can appreciate the film’s cinematography and have some minor understanding of typical horror genre shooting of the day, when it comes to the story and characters... excuse me, but no. They’re weak at best. None of the characters have any sort of strength of character, nor any personality worth speaking of, hence the happenings have no to little effect on the viewer as it’s impossible to relate to them. Other than an obvious perversity to enjoying lightly dressed female screaming in horror and flailing about helplessly, there’s little to no enjoyment to be won from this.

I can see how the original set in its own time frame could be a great? good? movie, but it wouldn’t do in our times whatsoever and as such, the “remake” has done an amazing job of retelling a similar story in a different context and make it both believable and gripping in a modern age (despite still being set in the 70s)
This one had me sit there with a raised eyebrow for the better half of the film and hope for a quick ending, while the new version had me pretty much glued the entire way.

When it comes to horror films around this era that I actually enjoyed, let's talk Phenomena. At least we have strong willed and smart characters, not annoying dimwits, in this one.
And the bad rep of witchcraft in this one to boot!
I think I need to watch the old Wicker Man to cure me of this disaster :joy:

So thanks for enlightening me of the "original Suspiria", but no thanks. There's way better classic films out there than this one.

Arriving in Germany to perfect her craft, a promising young ballet dancer is thrust into a roiling pot of aggressive weirdness. She hasn't even passed through the school's front door before a would-be classmate runs screaming out into the woods, never to be seen (alive) again. As the week progresses, she'll have an episode with a mood-altering knife, comb live maggots out of her hair and encounter an invisible headmistress as the student body count climbs.

Director Dario Argento doesn't shy from the uncomfortable bits: each death is proudly exhibited in a line of provocative, if sometimes random, gory indulgences. After that girl stumbles into a poorly-placed pit of razor wire, for example, he'll dive in for the close-up as she thrashes and wails. The portrayals are all representative of the era, with oodles of thick, bright red paint in lieu of a more convincing blood substitute and no shortage of dated makeup effects, so Suspira's enthusiasm to show off falls rather flat in a modern light. Its ambitious knack for set design and dynamic use of color are no less bold, but they've held up better over the years. Argento seems to relish the larger-than-life, pairing his film's surreal environs and loud lighting choices with an equally harsh, chaotic musical score. These eccentricities can be downright smothering at times, though, and the slim, slow-moving plot often suffers as a result. It’s stylish enough, but wild splashes of artistry and loose morals can only carry a film so far. At some point, we're bound to want a little more meat on the bone.