13 Nights of Shocktober: Suspiria

by A. J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 11: The iris is the flower that will be the end of you! Suspiria

Suspiria, released in 1977, is considered by many to be Italian director Dario Argento’s masterpiece. It is certainly his most well-known film. Up to this point in his career, Argento had worked mostly in “giallo” film genre, which were usually violent pulp murder mystery stories. The level of violence had been increasing in his previous films and Deep Red, the film he made before Suspiria, dealt with some supernatural elements. Suspiria is his first full bore supernatural horror movie and it is a great one.

Jessica Harper plays Suzy, an American ballet student who arrives in Munich, Germany on a very stormy night to attend a prestigious ballet academy. When she tries to enter the front door of the academy another student runs out in a panicked state shouting to someone inside but the storm makes her words hard to hear. That student is murdered a short while later in one of the most lavish and gruesome first kills in a horror movie (it involves being hung and thrown through stained glass skylight). Suzy is questioned about her run-in with the murdered student, but can only remember the words “secret” and “iris.” Other violent, grisly deaths occur along with strange happenings, like maggots falling from every ceiling in the academy. The cause for all of the murders and the sinister nature of the ballet academy lies within what Suzy heard the night that she arrived -- but will she remember it?

Suspiria is heavy on style with its rich, vivid color palette and bold production design.  Several scenes are bathed in blue or red light. The death scenes are extravagant, but fit with the film’s aesthetic. The blood, which is bright red, sometimes almost orange-red, and gore are too stylized to be realistic, but realism is not the aim of Suspiria. The production design, visual effects, and cinematography combine to create a film that is visually pleasing even while being violent and scary. It’s an unusual, but interesting experience. The rock soundtrack by The Goblins is another important, and memorable, element in the spooky, surreal lavishness of the movie.

There are odd touches that make this a unique film. Argento originally wanted the girls attending the academy to be no older then 12 and wrote the script with preteen actresses in mind. When he was convinced that such a violent film starring children would likely be banned, he changed the age of he girls to 20, but did not change the script to reflect their age. This explains why the girls at the school seem extra naïve and sometimes act like children. Another unique touch is that like many Italian productions, the dialogue was recorded and added in after filming. Since the film had an international cast, the actors spoke their native languages while shooting even though their dialogue would be dubbed with English. The result is that not every character’s voice matches her lips and even the voices of actors actually speaking English don’t seem completely natural.

My favorite peculiar moment in Suspiria is an outdoor scene in which Suzy sits on a bench with a professor who explains the dark occult history of the academy. The wind gusts Jessica Harper’s hair over her face, nearly covering it completely, for almost the entire scene. It’s oddly the most realistic moment in the entire movie. You would not see that happen in a Hollywood movie.

This is one film that truly delivers on enveloping you in an experience. Jessica Harper, with her wide doe eyes, does well in the role of the new student trying to make sense of this strange school. Suspiria uses its stylistic elements to create the same creepy, mysterious, and disorienting feeling for the audience that Suzy is also experiencing. While not all of the effects hold up, Suspiria is not reliant on special effects for its mood and scares. This film walks a tightrope between art-house horror and schlock, and never misses a step.