Season of the Witches (Suspiria (DVD))

Member Name: Hunting_Bears

Product:	Suspiria (DVD)
Date:	16/04/05 (268 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: it's brilliant

Disadvantages: none

Dario Argento is without doubt the greatest horror filmmaker in the history of cinema. His films ooze with style and explore sadomasochistic relationships between victim and murderer. "Suspiria" delves the audience into sheer audio-visual delirium and is so relentless in its efforts to scare that the trailer tells the viewer "The only thing more terrifying than the last 12 minutes of Suspiria is the first 92".

Dario Argento is an Italian filmmaker who is often dismissed by snobbish film critics as a genre filmmaker and often attacked for being a misogynist. These claims are not without their points and Argento loves to photograph the bodies of dead women in his films. He also frequently casts his daughters and wife in his films and then murders them in stylish murder sequences.

Suspiria concerns the use of the black arts, specifically witchcraft and magic. An American named Suzy Banyon arrives at a prestigous dance academy in Frieburg, Germany and on her arrival at the school during a stormy night, she sees a girl fleeing in terror. The next day the girl turns up dead! Suzy instantly feels uncomfortable at the school and after a series of increasingly bizarre incidents, she makes a rather shocking discovery! I will not spoil the rest of the film.

The film contains some wonderful set pieces such as the infamous double murder sequence in which a young girl's beating heart is penetrated by a knife and her friend's head cut in half by a sheet of glass. The best however is the barb wire room sequence in which a young student named Sara is pursued through ill lit corridors of the dance academy by a razorblade wielding killer. She climbs through a window and the audience expects the killer to be waiting on the other side, the scene is so intense that you may be watching it through your fingers! When she drops down from the window into the room she falls into a room filled with barbed wire, she thrashes around and is increasingly cut to ribbons by the wire. It is an incredibly surreal scene and very horrific but absolutely amazing for a horror film.

The main problem for people who like their films to make sense might be turned off by Argento's mad horror film because has the film goes on it gradually breaks down in terms of narrative sense. It is a highly illogical film but that is because it deals with the supernatural in a way that has never been attempted in cinema before. Suspiria is a like an unpleasant nightmare or dream. Dreams don't make sense, so why should films?

I recommend Dario Argento's Suspiria, for it is an unusual horror film and highly original. Stick with it all the way and you will be rewarded with a truly terrifying experience. The photography is absolutely stunning and it looks like the Disney "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves", it uses lots of primary colours and the soundtrack by a group called Goblins is almost as scary as the film with groans, chanting, organs, guitars and bass all clashing together like a demented nusery rythme.

Running Time: 1 hour 38 minutes

Stars: Jessica Harper, Joan Bennett and Udo Kier

Director: Dario Argento

Cost: between ten and twenty pounds on DVD.

Summary: