So close, but yet so far away.
West Berlin, 1977. A young American woman moves to Germany to join a prestigious (and creepy as fuck) all female dance academy. Things start out okay, but it isn’t too long before she starts to notice that some sinister shenanigans are afoot. Most of the shenanigan’s stem from the fact that the school is run by an evil coven of thousand-year-old witches in the middle of a power struggle.
SUSPIRIA, for those of you who don’t know (and there’s nothing wrong with not knowing…everybody has to learn something somewhere) is a remake of Dario Argento’s 1977 horror film of the same name. SUSPIRIA (1977) has a justifiable place in movie history (awesome musical score, bold use of colours, etc.), but it wasn’t a great film. So…that said, I was looking forward to checking out this remake.
The opening scene was a snoozer, but after that things start going along pretty good with a creepy atmosphere, surreal dream imagery and gruesome violence. Then, for some unknown reason things slow down and it just starts to drone on and on and on. For 152 minutes. I don’t mind horror films with long runtimes. Hell, MIDSOMMAR was 148 minutes and I love that movie, but the story has got to move forward! SUSPIRIA has way too much excess baggage and unneeded bullshit.
I’m not a filmmaker and nobody reads this bullshit, but off the top of my handsome head I’d say the entire Dr. Josef Klemperer character could have been left out of the story. Every scene with him drags on like torture. Secondly, the witch showdown climax sucked and looked like hell. After such a long build-up it was a huge disappointment. Also, what was the point of setting the film in 1977? Who gives a fuck? My simple dmub brain just wants to see some creepy witch shit!
Excessive runtime that kills the film, bloated script, above average acting, completely unneeded casting / make-up gimmicks that take the viewer out of the film, promising moments of cool arthouse creepiness, a lot of drab colours, random arthouse nudity, various moments of obviously fake-looking computer graphics, impressive mirror effects, at least two David Bowie posters. SUSPIRIA is an interesting film, but when it’s all said and done, it just left me wanting to see yet another (and hopefully superior) remake. The story idea is way too awesome to be left like this.
[This has nothing to do with the review, but am I the only one that thinks Dakota Johnson's character in this film looks like Sarah Goldberg's character in Barry? It was kinda tripping me out.]
Original - Suspiria (1977)
