Of all the weird, blood-soaked thriller-horror flicks Italian director Dario Argento ever made, Suspiria is the one cinephiles most often like to name-drop. With good reason: It looks somewhat ham-fisted now, but it’s a brilliant piece, full of twisted witchcraft themes and an electric color palette that’s still eye-catching four decades later. With director Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria set to hit theaters this week, it’s tempting to watch the 1977 original before seeing its modern reimagining. One piece of advice, though: Don’t.
Related Stories
This is, I understand, cinematic sacrilege. Part of showing reverence as a film lover is knowing the precedents. It’s criminal to see a new Godzilla or King Kong movie without first paying tithes to Toho; the same goes for checking out a new Evil Dead movie or Spike Lee's remake of Oldboy. Part of this simple preparedness for the inevitable That Guy who will well-actually his way into a conversation with you—but the other part is about respect. If a modern filmmaker is going to go looking for gold in the vault of filmmaking’s past, they’d better do it justice. The only way to know if they do or not is to familiarize yourself with the source material.
Suspiria (the new one) is not that kind of remake. Star Tilda Swinton calls it a “cover version,” a movie with similar lyrics and melody, but very different instrumentation. The bones are there: A young American woman (this time around played by Dakota Johnson) moves to Germany to attend a prestigious dance academy run by witches, including choreographer Madame Blanc (Swinton); mysterious disappearances and schizophrenic behavior haunt its halls. The similarities largely end there, though. The new Suspiria isn't so much a giallo wannabe as it is a deep psychological mindfuck about the horror of knowing that the evils of days gone by never really leave us. It’s also a deeply beautiful film with some deeply unsettling sound design (assisted by a score from Thom Yorke, doing his own not-cover of prog-rock band Goblin's 1977 original) and a truly twisted ending crafted specifically to twist in your psyche for days. Anyone searching for Argento’s original in its frames will leave disappointed.
In that regard, Suspiria is what a remake should be—a reinvention of themes, not a slavish recreation of what’s already been done. And what Guadagnino has done is turn Argento’s themes into narrative ideas. Whereas Argento’s film used witches as a way to add occult flavor, Guadagnino, aided by David Kajganich’s script, uses them to show femininity as a force. (One of the first things people who have seen Argento’s movie might notice is that the Helena Markos Dance Company is no longer coed.) This movie is being made, and released, in a time when the horrors of being a woman are known, and Guadagnino’s story aims, in his words, to “de-victimize” them. Even though it’s set in a divided Berlin in the 1970s, Suspiria opens its eyes in a world where female power has never been stronger or more under attack. “Witch,” throughout history, has often been synonymous with “woman who has too much power,” and in Guadagnino’s world they are feared and revered.
The new Suspiria also weaves in a subplot about Dr. Klemperer (also played by Swinton, under a lot of makeup), the psychotherapist trying to uncover what’s been happening at the dance company. He’d been treating a former dancer named Patricia (Chloë Grace Moretz) whose diary revealed an ancient religion practiced by the coven at Helena Markos. When she disappears, it’s believed she may have joined the anti-fascist movement. Without spoiling too much, I will say the allegories made about life in a Germany still dealing with the fallout of World War II and dealing with denazification (the actions of the Red Army Faction/Baader-Meinhof Gang during the German Autumn of 1977 play out in the background) are not wasted. The past haunts everyone more than any vision or incantation.
To be clear: Not everyone is going to like Suspiria 2018. It’s already drawing comparisons to last year’s mother! for its overall weirdness and divisiveness. At two and a half hours, it’s 50-odd minutes longer than Argento’s film, and maybe 20 minutes too long in general. Its tricks and turns are plentiful, perhaps too plentiful. Guadagnino has created a platter of quick-cut psychosis shots—fingernails dug into hardwood floors, faceless women scaling door jambs, blood, dancing lights—that pepper the film as it descends into its finale. They’re brilliant, but also a bit much, like a ballet dancer doing multiple grand battement moves just because they can. Yet, for those who like their cerebral laced with grotesquery, it’s also a feast.
And it’s a meal best enjoyed without an appetizer. Longtime horror fans and cinephiles have likely already seen Argento’s Suspiria, as they should. And the smart and right thing to do for those who haven’t is to watch it before going to the theater this weekend. But if you can help it, don’t follow that impulse. (Luckily, it might be hard to: the 1977 movie isn’t currently on Netflix or Amazon. In fact, about the only way to watch it short of ordering a DVD is by streaming it here. Bookmark that to watch after seeing its modern reincarnation.) It's too easy, when the mysteries and outcomes of the original film are fresh in your mind, to just sit and wait for them to come. Do that, and you’ll miss what Guadagnino has created, and never find what you’re looking for. He made it as an homage to Argento, and the originality that director brought to the screen. It shows.