Customer Reviews

Suspiria

5 star:		(127)
4 star:		(64)
3 star:		(30)
2 star:		(27)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

Sure there are some weak spots in this, as in all other Argento pics. I encourage all viewers of the recent "Screamsummerbuffy" set to sit through this one though. You won't see a visual presentation like this anywhere else. The climax of the opening scene in "Scream" is a direct homage to the start of SUSPIRIA. They don't make them like this anymore, Argento included.

Suspiria is an excellent startingpoint for those who have never beenexposed to Argento's style of horrorfilms. The film is perhaps the bestexample of his use of color filteringto provide an almost "acid trip" voyagethrough a young dancer's nightmareexperience at school that is home to acoven of witches. I promise that anyonewho watches this film (horror fan or not) will never forget it. To anyonewho seeks out a copy of Suspiria (whichwas recently re-released is its uneditedform) and wants to see more of what Argento has done, I would suggest thatyou look for Deep Red and Unsane. Bothare out of print, but can be found atmany video rental stores. An uneditedversion of Unsane (in its original title-Tenebrae) can be found on some ofthe Argento web sites. Tenebrae is myfavorite Argento film, but Suspiria isthe work he is known by, and the filmthat should be seen by anyone who wantsto know who Dario Argento really is.

Definitly one of the greatest movie of all time. As the ultimate master of terror ,Dario Argento brings you a fine piece of horror.With superb colors,intelligent plot,magnificent score by the goblins and great gore effects,Suspiria is sure to satisfy evey horror fan.

To the average horror fan, Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA is a gothic and wonderfully terrorfying film with eye-popping sets and a delightful score by the 'Goblins' and after the first 12 minutes of the film, people with weak stomachs may feel a little green but to anyone besides that, SUSPIRIA is a must-see. END

Dario Argento's magnificent horror film about strange goings-on at a world-famous ballet school. Argento adds tons of style and atmosphere to this marvelously logic-defying tale of terror. Definitely not for the faint-hearted or weak of stomach! END

Watching the American trailer to this made me laugh especially when the background speaker whispers the title to this film. For all I can see this film is not about plot...it's about experience. This is the opposite formula of American horror. As a matter of fact, Suspiria pretty much throws out the rules of cinema in favor of the logic of dreams...to put it bluntly, Suspiria is the definitive cinematic nightmare, a wildly colorful and dazzlingly stylish fun-house of blood and beauty. Take it seriously and you'll laugh. Take it too lightly and you'll be bored. It demands a degree of intelligence and sophistication from the viewer, but this does not mean that it necessarily follows any archetype, and it certainly should not be discredited for its lack of conventional movie wisdom. I read from lots of Argento's fans and critics alike attack his films for bad acting, but I would have to disagree, particularly in the case of Suspiria. All of the actors in this film are fine actors, and if their performances seem "dull" or "weak" it's because Argento instructed them that way,

Suspiria is, in my opinion, one of the most terrifying films ever made. At times, I find my nightmares to be far more frightening than any horror movie or ghost story or strange noises in the middle of the night. However, fear is a far more subjective emotion that people give it credit for-witness the unbelievably extreme responses to 1999's The Blair Witch Project-and thus it's not fair to blast Suspiria based on whether or not it frightened you. On a personal note, One of my all time favorite horror film is Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street...yet it has NEVER scared me. Contrary to what American filmmakers profess, horror films are about much more than simply scaring an audience. Essentially they are just conventional dramas, pushed to the extreme in terms of visceral emotional response and, often times, the explicitness of onscreen content. Such a definition could and should be applied to Suspiria.

The most popular theory about Suspiria is one shared by many critics and many fans, and that is that the film is a technical masterpiece...period. This is something with which I partially agree, AND vehemently disagree. First off, Suspiria definitely has an emotional component to it. It's not as present as in other popular horror films of its time-Halloween, The Shining, A Nightmare on Elm Street, etc.-but its there. And while the plot gets criticized, its apparent "weakness" is crucial to the effectiveness' of the film; if the movie made sense; it wouldn't be scary at all! With all that having been said, I must admit that the strongest elements of Suspiria are its technical merits. In all honesty, this film is one of the best horror movies I've seen recently in regards to 1). Cinematography, 2). Musical editing 3. Camera movement, and 4. Framing and composition. The minutest details are splashed across the screen in Argento's wonderfully fanciful style, and the result is....SUSPIRIA. Watch it in the dark so the colors would get at you ten times more.

Thanks to the horror crew that insisted this film to me which eventually turn out to be far better then my last film by this director. Now I need ya'll to Scream!

This movie deserves 2 1/2 stars. It is not scary. The theme song is pretty good, but overused. The sound effects are often ridiculously busy. The scenes of gore are inappropriately graphic -- a close-up shot of a throat being cut does not fill me with dread, it just makes feel a little bit uncomfortable. The suspense is forced and amateurish. The witch theme becomes intriguing, but surfaces too late in the movie. The ending is strangely obvious and straightforward, in contrast with the rest of the movie.

Suspiria is not a great movie, period. It is not very entertaining, and it is not scary in any way. Go ahead and rent it, but take it for what it is. You may really like it, but I don't see why you would.

Argento has a talent for inserting subtle clues in his movies (maybe the best example being the initial scene in Deep Red).

In Suspiria he inserts at least two intriguing clues, by willingly subverting science, as a way to alert us to the presence of unearthly evil. Just a few seconds before the scene in which maggots fall from the ceiling, we see some water draining from a sink, and rotating clockwise. This contradicts the myth (if not the reality) of the fact that in the upper emisphere the Coriolis force would impose a counterclockwise rotation (...). It seems to me that the deliberate choice of rotation in the sink is not casual, but rather a clue that Argento is giving us that 'not all is well' in the school. A second clue comes towards the end of the movie, when we see water spurting from in a gutter, in an apparent violation of basic principles of pressure. Once again, this violation of physics occurs just a few seconds before the horror begins.

I am not a fan of this particular movie (though it is quite rich in atmosphere, and the use of color -from the very beginning- is intriguing), but I did found these subtle uses of science to be interesting.

This was, without a doubt, one of the most pathetic excuses for a horror movie I've ever seen. I'd say about three quarters of it was nothing but some girls fartin around yapping about nothing. There are just a few very short killing scenes, which aren't that great. The soundtrack everyone seems to rave about sounds like a few kids in a basement banging on trashcans. I wouldn't reccomend this movie to anyone. I'd suggest movies by Lucio Fulci, such as The Beyond, House by the Cemetery, or Zombie, to name a few.