Skip to main content

Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977)

Suspiria is a pitch-perfect example of "pure" horror cinema; the near-total disregard of narrative and character in favour of painstakingly setting a specific mood and atmosphere.

The results will frustrate those seeking logic, but offer in its place an unparalleled aesthetic experience; a whirling maelstrom of colour and composition accompanied by a cacophony of sound designed to unsettle and unnerve. It's proof if proof need be that in the right hands, books and films can be very different things indeed.

The story could be written on the back of a beer mat, and involves witches at a German ballet school, but like all Argento films it is little more than a framework to support a series of increasingly outrageous murder scenes, the director's ruthlessly sadistic streak competing directly with his decorative sense of fine detail and beauty.

With Italian prog-rockers Goblin providing the deafening soundtrack, one doesn't so much watch Suspiria as be buffeted around in its turbulent waters. This is unquestionably Argento's masterwork, a unique piece of horror history; gory, stupid and absolutely redoubtably glorious.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Adam Hadsall5 November 2010 at 15:37

    That's the beauty of Argento. He can take half of the elements that comprise a 'weak' movie and make an enjoyable experience using only those.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics [PS4, 2024]

These are great fighting games. Truly terrific fighting games. From a golden era of sprite-based craft and technical innovation, they've spent far too long gated off behind expensive gimmick cabinets and ownership conflicts.  But here they are, all of Capcom's "Marvel" and "Versus" fighting games released between 1994 and 2000 in one collection. You've got; X-Men: Children of the Atom (stubborn and janky now, but looks gorgeous and is pure innovation and influence)  Marvel Superheroes (sublime refinement of COTA, masterful art and animation, great use of Thanos/the Infinity Stones and one of the best fighting games ever made)  X-Men vs Street Fighter (wild tag-team action with the Street Fighter cast at their most overpowered) Marvel Superheroes vs Street Fighter (the weakest of the bunch, but still glorious, technicolour carnage and the first in the series to use "assists")  Marvel vs Capcom (pushing 2v2 fighting to the limit and full of brill...
Post a Comment
Read more

Capcom Fighting Collection 2 [PS4, 2025]

This is the third of Capcom's in-house "fighting collection" releases. It focuses on the late '90s - early 2000s, when development had moved to the NAOMI arcade board. This was a time when general public interest was moving away from the oversaturated fighting game market and into the new and expansive three-dimensional space.  Eight titles comprise the collection; Capcom vs SNK Pro (2000) Capcom vs SNK 2 (2001) Capcom Fighting Jam (2004) Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper (2001) Power Stone (1999) Power Stone 2 (2000) Plasma Sword (1998) Project Justice (2000) The Capcom vs SNK games are the undoubted highlight; the experimental, flawed first game and the massive follow-up still look great and both feature huge rosters of characters, expansive, complex battle systems and hidden secrets.  As with the rest of the CFC run, archive material, training modes, display filters, extra options, modern control considerations and rollback netcode are all great benefits. Also returnin...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)

In lesser hands, “the Facebook movie” could have been a disaster. Hollywood and the internet have a less than stellar common history, tending to fall back on technobabble and fancy graphics in place of what is often a less-than glamourous reality. The story of Mark Zuckerberg, billionaire creator of Facebook defies this convention; neither coming of age movie, nor a nerd-gets-the-girl schmaltz. While Facebook itself may thrive on the trivial and banal, its genesis is presented as anything but.
Post a Comment
Read more