TSP2019: Suspiria

Suspiria. Luca Guadagnino. 2018.

I have not seen the original Suspiria movie, but I’ve seen quite a few movies by Luca Guadagnino, and I’ve liked almost all of them.

There’s so many references here… “Dr. Klemperer”… Arthur Koestler… “Berger”… Baader-Meinhof… Surely these can’t all have been in the original horror movie? Or perhaps they were? I have no idea. Are they just in-jokes or do they make sense?

Swinton is brilliant in the roles. She does an aging doctor perfectly as she does the choreograph.

I knew this was a horror movie, but when the er horrific bits started, I was still kinda nonplussed. And then it dawned on me that this was going to be the movie, and I got a couple of pillow to hold in front of my face for the rest of the movie. (And there were bits I had to cover my ears as well.)

This isn’t a scary movie, but it’s grisly. Is this torture porn or New Extreme European Cinema?

The cinematography is interesting: They’ve kept everything in 70s beige and greys. One thing this doesn’t help with are the black actors, whose faces are basically just #000000. It reminds me of that Mad TV (or was it SNL?) sketch about the couples photographer?

One thing this entire movies reminds be of is Out 1, and that’s also what makes this movie frustrating: Just when I’m thinking “OK, finally we’re going to see some dancing” then there’s all these gruesome images interspersed with it. They should have added another 30 minute just with the dancers dancing.

This post is part of The Tilda Swinton Project.