As the credits rolled, I stared up at the screen and couldn’t have been more confused; not only as to why this remake was remade, but also as to the content of the movie, literally uttering aloud, “what did I just watch?” It was at this moment that I surmised “Suspiria” to be no more than a non-scary horror flick that interrupts long stretches of meandering and literal mumbling with shocking moments of macabre, grotesque and ultra violence, spread over a span of 2 hours and 32 minutes. And the only question I was left with was, was this meandering and ultra violence mash-up justified by the story director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name) and writer David Kajganich were attempting to tell? And the answer was a resounding no. In fact, if anything this is a story that could’ve been told in under an hour…and that’s being generous.
Synopsis: Set in Cold War Germany, an American woman (Dakota Johnson) joins a prestigious all female dance academy lead by an instructor played by Tilda Swinton; an academy which may be a cover for a witch’s coven. There is also a subplot about an elderly male psychotherapist (who for some reason is also played by Swinton) that can only be described as “an exercise in time wasting”. Oh, and before you raise your eyebrow in interest due to Swinton playing two different characters, the truth is that she actually plays three characters. But, none of these characters lend themselves to powerful performances; only to rather alarming Nutty professor-esque makeup and prosthetics.
Anyway, as the plot pushes forward, “Suspiria” only becomes more unnecessarily messy and pointless. But that Thom Yorke score was really good. So, there’s that.
Not all of “Suspiria” is nonsense. There are some visually striking dance sequences and for a while the mystery aspect of the plot was something that interested me. But again, this movie is 2 hours and 32 minutes. I became disinterested in much of the plot by the end of the first hour.
Final Thought: Having never seen the original Dario Argento Giallo classic in its entirety, Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” was a stand-alone psychological horror/mystery piece for me; and not a very good one. Honestly, the only reason “Suspiria” gets the stars it does is that while I walked out of the theater savagely disappointed, throughout the runtime there was something which compelled me to keep watching and not zone out. And while the acting is fine, but overshadowed by the repetitive visuals, and much that I feel is wrong with the movie had to do with the storytelling, Guadagnino had to have done something right for me not to absolutely bail on something I was absolutely confused with. At the very least this was a very slow moving, but compellingly filmed dumpster fire that put me into a trance. A part of me simply had to find out how big the fire would get and from what angles looked best.
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