Suspiria

Rating:
Summary: A bona fide horror classic given the star treatment
Review: It's always interesting to me to hear people explain why they don't like Argento's movies. I've seen most of them at this point, and although a few of them aren't that special, the majority are at the very least excellent additions to the horror canon.

The defense of Argento you're most likely to hear is that the movies don't NEED to make perfect sense. What Argento has done is to create an atmosphere that is more dreamlike than grounded in reality. In that sense, they definitely have a more nightmarish feel than most horror movies, which tend to be bland, formulaic, or beholden to useless exposition.

Argento appeals to raw sensuality, primal fear, and the unsettling feeling of un-reality. And Suspiria is probably his most effective movie in this sense. The American prints of his movies have always been re-edited, cut, and underbaked. Anchor Bay has fixed this with their stunning series of Argento movies. Seeing this version of Suspiria was like seeing it for the first time. The color schemes are gorgeous, saturared, and haunting. The print is crisp. And perhaps most importantly, we can finally see the movie the way it was meant to be seen.

If you just can't turn off that analytic instinct when you watch his movies, maybe they just aren't for you. But if you want to take in an incredibly atmospheric horror film that plays with basic horror elements to produce something imaginative, strange and terrifying, then this is a must see. The movies DO make sense-- perfect sense, in fact. It just might not become clear on the first viewing. Like a bad dream, it can be loosely structured. But still plenty scary.

Fans are likely to rank Argento's movies in very different order, but Deep Red and Opera would probably rank pretty high on most people's lists, and I really enjoyed Phenomena and Tenebre as well. All of these are available from Anchor Bay. A lot of folks tend to write off Trauma, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. Even the new Sleepless is worth seeing, but I went with the European version-- the American release does the usual job of re-editing, cutting and re-formatting Argento's original film. When will it end?