LET’S GET PHYSICAL: SUSPIRIA (1977) ****

FORMAT:  4K UHD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on August 19th, 2007)

Jessica (Shock Treatment) Harper stars as Suzy Bannion, a young girl attending a mysterious dance school that’s ran by an old woman whose snoring frightens everybody. (Who knew sleep apnea could be so terrifying?) The teachers drug Suzy with tainted wine to keep her from snooping around, but after her friends start dropping like flies, Suzy dumps the wine and searches for the truth. In the end she learns that the school is ran by a coven of witches led by “The Black Queen” and sticks a needle through the old bag’s throat.

Suspiria is Dario Argento’s masterpiece. Although flawed and slow in some spots; the sequences of terror-inducing tension are undeniably some of the best ever captured on film. The first murder has to be the Italian equivalent to the shower scene in Psycho. A young girl gets repeatedly stabbed (once directly into the heart) and falls through a stained-glass window where she is hung up by the neck. Her unfortunate friend also feels the brunt of the glass when it comes crashing down onto her. Next a blind piano player gets his throat savagely ripped out by his seeing-eye dog. And finally, there’s an incredible death where a girl falls into a room full of razor wire.

Argento bathes the film in rich primary colors and his gorgeous compositions compliments the escalating suspense. This is Argento at his best and any horror fan worth his salt should own a copy and watch it again and again. This was the first in Argento’s “Three Mothers” trilogy, with the next film being Inferno.

QUICK THOUGHTS:

Nobody does it like Dario Argento.  End of story.  Part blood-soaked fairy tale, part waking nightmare, this is about as good as it gets when we are talking Italian horror, folks. 

4K UHD NOTES:

Suspiria is Dario Argento’s most beautiful cinematic nightmare, and it looks even more nightmarish in stunning 4K.  Synapse did a marvelous job as the color palette, which was already so lush to begin with, really pops.  From the opening taxi ride to the big murder set piece that kicks off the film to the deep reds in the makeshift dorm scene to the horror of the razor wire room to the final confrontation with the Black Queen, this presentation really is a thing of beauty.  The pulsating Goblin soundtrack slaps even harder now too.  In short, this is a must-own for your 4K collection.