(European witches don’t carry brooms. They carry straight razors. Probably to shave their hairy pits with. Beware.)
CAST: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Alida Valli, Joan Bennett, Udo Kier, Miguel Bose, Eva Axen, Barbara Magnolfi.
DIRECTOR: Dario Argento
WARNING: SPOILERS and much red splattery stuff and bad dubbing up ahead….
In 2002, I loaned my Super-Duper Edition DVD of SUSPIRIA to a friend who I thought was a fellow suspense/horror aficionado. The following week, when he returned the DVD to me, he kept giving me strange looks - usually from out of the corner of his eyes. When I asked him what was wrong, after some unconvincing protests to the contrary, he finally said, “That movie was fucking strange.” Ergo, I was strange, since I had sung its praises in the three languages I speak. Moral of the story - not everyone will get SUSPIRIA. In fact, there are two kinds of people in this world: 1) The people who don’t get SUSPIRIA, and 2) us strange folk.
Dario Argento, the director of SUSPIRIA has a special place in my heart. Yes, his films often don’t make much logical sense, which is why my friend had a hard time with SUSPIRIA. I mean, what was I thinking? That, just because he liked horror films, he would get it? Shouldn’t I have taken the fact that his favorite horror movies are the SCREAM films, as the first warning sign? SCREAM is no SUSPIRIA, and there are even those who claim that SCREAM’s opening Drew Barrymore murder sequence was inspired by SUSPIRIA’s opening double-murder. Wouldn’t surprise me. Argento’s films may not appeal to those who are accustomed to “cutesy” American horror. But on a hypnotic and dream-like level, they are intense, compelling, occasionally unintentionally funny, and most of the time, dead-on scary. SUSPIRIA is the film in his oeuvre that best exemplifies these qualities.
The film opens with a narrator telling us about American ballet student Susy Banyon (doe-eyed Jessica Harper), who has come to Germany to further her dance studies at the acclaimed Tanz Akademie. Arriving in the middle of the night, in the middle of torrential rainstorm, Susy hails a cab that takes her through the eerie and rainswept nighttime world of Frieburg. Arriving at the Akademie, Susy sees another student (Eva Axen) running out into the rain, yelling something over her shoulder. Barely seeing Susy, the girl vanishes into the surrounding forest. Deciding that it’s not her fucking problem, Susy ignores this strange event and pushes the button on the call-box by the front door. An angry voice from the other end pretty much tells Susy to go fuck herself, because there is no way she is getting in to the Akademie that night. Miffed, Susy jumps into the taxi and heads back to town. But not before seeing the girl from earlier rushing through the trees outside, rushing back to town as if there were a sale on lederhosen at the local department store.
The mystery girl arrives in town and heads straight for an apartment building that looks like the offspring of a Crayola orgy. Done up in bright reds, golds, and oranges, the building’s lobby makes the girl forget the dash through the rainy forest. Heading upstairs, the girl - whose name turns out to be Pat - barges in on a pal and pleads to let her stay the night. The friend, obviously a better person than me, says “Sure.” When questioned about why she fled the school in the middle of the night, Pat refuses to say anything except that “it’s absurd and unbelievable.” No shit, the friend thinks. It would have to be for this heifer to bust in on me in the middle of the night without even the courtesy of a phone call.
The friend leaves Pat alone in the bathroom, which turns out to be a huge mistake because an unseen someone with hairy arms and long fingernails busts through the window and drags Pat out onto the apartment roof. If you’re thinking that this must be an elaborate sex game with a boyfriend with questionable hygiene, get ready to be disappointed. Because unless the sex game included being stabbed through the heart repeatedly and Pat was not told about it in advance, it looks like she’s actually being murdered in cold blood.
Meanwhile, hearing the commotion in the locked bathroom, Pat’s friend rushes out into the hallway to pound on the doors of the other units. Her neighbors show their German sense of civic responsibility and by-the-book diligence by extending their middle fingers in the general direction of their securely locked front doors - then turning up the sound on their tellies to drown out the pounding and screaming. Pissed off that no one is falling for her number, the friend rushes down to the lobby - which turns out to be an even bigger mistake. Because the killer has dropped Pat’s dead body through the Day-glo skylight over the lobby, sending shards of glass the size of Volkswagens hurtling down to the lobby below. If you’re wondering what happens to Pat’s friend, let’s just say she ends up having a lot in common with a pin-cushion. Only pin-cushions don’t spurt fire-engine-red blood and writhe in agony.
The next day, Susy heads over to the Akademie, unaware of the fate that has befallen her missed connection from the night before. Arriving at the school, Susy meets, in short order, the following people: 1) Ms. Tanner (Alida Valli) - butch, scary, and partial to deeply unsexy footwear; and 2) Madame Blanc (Joan Bennett), named obviously because of the constant expression on her face that makes you question whether Botox was really a recent invention; and 3) Olga (Barbara Magnolfi), obviously a troublemaker of the highest order and a huge fan of Sesame Street, judging from her tendency to equate anyone with a name starting with an “S” to a snake; and 4) Sarah (Stefania Casini), a neurotic and high-strung Italian student who always seems one jolt away from pissing herself with either fear or rage. All these colorful characters swirl around Susy, each one cluing her in with their own style on life at the Akademie. If Olga is to be believed, the place is filled with money-grubbing bitches. If Sarah is to be believed, they’re all just bitches.
Naturally, news of Pat’s murder spreads like wildfire through the school. Olga, ever the sensitive one, tells Susy that Pat deserved it because she was such a busybody. Sarah, on the other hand, takes exception to this because Pat was her best friend. Obviously, the truth lies somewhere in between, and it’s this truth that Susy becomes interested in ferreting out. Who killed Pat? Why did she take off in the middle of the night like that? Who was on the call-box that told Susy to take her ass to a hotel in town? What’s up with those hairstyles? Is all the griping and bickering between these women simply sexual tension begging to be released in an all-out, go for broke, Euro-lesbian orgy? Am I sleazebag?
Anyhow, shit gets even stranger when a maggot infestation in the dormitory (you read that right) forces the girls to camp out in the practice halls, where Sarah hears a strange kind of snoring that makes her conclude to Susy that the teaching staff are a bunch of no-good, lying whores. If you’re wondering how “snoring” could lead her to such an “a-ha!” moment, then you obviously have not seen many Dario Argento movies. Suffice it to say, it actually kind of makes sense in a thoroughly “WTF?” way. Later, Daniel the blind piano man calls Ms. Tanner a bitch when she insults his loyal dog. Upset that Daniel can still see the truth despite his lack of sight, Ms. Tanner fires his “just keeping it real” ass. Fairly chortling with glee, Daniel pulls on his coat while yelling, “Fresh air! Get me out of this goddamn place!” His joy is short-lived, however, when his “loyal dog” shows its fidelity by ripping out Daniel’s larynx right in the middle of the town square. Coincidence? Bitch, please...
Convinced now that something sinister is afoot at the Tanz Akademie that is more than just a bunch of sniveling little divas with too much time and hormones and too little brain cells on their hands, Susy and Sarah team up to solve the mystery. Sarah confesses that it was her on the call-box that first night when Susy arrived. It’s a testament to either Susy’s generous nature or Dario Argento’s firm grasp on realistic behavior that Susy doesn’t drop-kick Sarah across the school while screaming, “Bitch! I almost caught pneumonia out there!“ Instead, she just accepts his revelation. Then again, when you’ve had to listen to someone use strange snoring as empirical evidence that a conspiracy is afoot, you tend to err on the side of caution and just agree with everything the whackjob is saying. Susy also just nods when Sarah insists on sharing her notes on the mysterious events, knowing what’s best for her.
Fortunately, before Sarah can show Susy the notes that she’d been compiling with Pat before her murder, Sarah is attacked by a cloaked assailant. Fleeing through the darkened school, Sarah escapes into the attic, where she eventually finds herself tangled in a sea of barbed wire (don‘t ask). The killer finally catches up to her. It won’t come as a surprise that, instead of lending a helping hand, he slashes Sarah’s throat with a straight razor. You wouldn’t know this from the look of shock on Sarah’s face afterward as she dies. As if she’s thinking, “I didn’t think the fucker would actually do it.” Guess again, lady.
Susy wakes up the next day to realize that Sarah has disappeared, and that she herself is pretty much fucked because of a little thing called “Guilt by Association.” Realizing she’s probably next, Susy gets motivated and starts researching the history of the Tanz Akademie. She finds out from Sarah’s ahead-of-his-time Metrosexual pal Frank Mendel (Udo Kier) that the school was founded by one Elena Markos - a woman reputed to be a powerful witch. Before you can say “endless exposition scene,” Frank has pulled out a Powerpoint presentation and outlined the twisted history of the school to a hapless Susy. Dazed, she returns to the school that night only to find out that all the other students and staff have gone to a ballet opening, leaving Susy alone with the two school cooks who look like the German versions of Buffalo Bill from THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. Not a good sign, folks.
Bored out of her skull with nothing to do or no one to talk to, Susy resumes investigating the history of the school. Her exploits eventually take her to Madame Blanc’s private office which looks like a cross between a coloring book and a whorehouse. Using deductive reasoning that would only fly in an Argento movie, Susy figures out the entrance code to a hidden passageway that involves three irises (once again, don’t ask). Following the tunnel beyond, Susy eventually finds a curtained room where it is revealed that the teaching staff are WITCHES! No, I mean seriously - they’re WITCHES. Actual WITCHES. Literally! Not just thoroughly unpleasant women. But thoroughly unpleasant women who can put a curse on your ass or force your dog to rip your throat out.
Fortunately, Susy has great strength of will and remembers something from that interminable history lesson that Frank gave her: if you kill the head of a witch coven, the entire coven dies, too. Armed with this knowledge, Susy escapes into what turns out to be Elana Markos’ private chamber, which resembles Madame Blanc’s, but even more whorehouse-like. If that’s possible. Confronted by the spunky American, Elana just laughs and taunts Susy repeatedly, thinking that turning invisible will save her from being attacked. Unfortunately, Elana also forgot to lose some weight because, even though she’s disappeared, her fat ass still leaves an indentation on the mattress beneath her. Indicating she hasn’t moved an inch. Ooops.
Needless to say, Susy stabs the living shit out of the empty air in front of her, which mortally wounds the not-so-bright Elana, making one wonder how the hell she got to be Head Witch. As she lies on her bed, dying, Elana materializes into view and reaches out to try to claw Susy. Susy, in turn, gives her a “bitch, please, you know you're fucked” look and hightails it out into the passageway, where she sees the rest of the coven dying. Or it could be just the lesbian orgy finally happening. Hard to say. Either way, Susy wants none of it and runs out of the collapsing building for the safety of the rainy parking lot. The last shot is of her with a shit-eating grin, rushing down the front steps of the school. The only thing missing is her doing a fist pump in the air while yelling, “I went to Germany to learn ballet, and instead I kicked the Wicked Witch of the West’s Ass! Boo-Yah!”
BUT, SERIOUSLY: As someone who also appreciates SUSPIRIA once told me, “If it weren’t for this film’s atmosphere, cinematography, sets, and music score, I would use the DVD as a beer coaster.” I think that he‘s right - to a point. No matter how brilliant the film elements are, the movie would have failed if it didn’t have such a strong heroine in Susy Banyon, and a capable actress like Jessica Harper playing her. The stars aligned when Dario Argento was making this movie. The script itself is pretty threadbare and only serviceable. However, what makes the story work is the casting of Jessica Harper as Susy Banyon. Harper’s interpretation of Susy is what hooks us for the ride. Sweet and unassuming, but with a stubborn and willful streak, Susy is a good heroine. Because of her, all the outlandish stuff unfolding around everyone almost makes sense.
But Argento’s skill at creating atmosphere and terror is also integral to SUSPIRIA’s success. The suspense sequences are first-rate, particulary Sarah’s extended stalking sequence and eventual death in the barbed-wire field - orchestrated to Goblin‘s nerve-wracking score. These images and sounds are the stuff that nightmares are made of, and Dario Argento understands that fear is not rooted in logic. SUSPIRIA is basically an exploration of that - and it remains one of the scariest films out there.
Let’s hope that the upcoming remake supposedly starring Natalie Portman doesn’t stink too much.
