Hollywood Suite’s Movie Madness: SUSPIRIA (1977) – New Restoration

A true supernatural horror staple, SUSPIRIA is the first in Italian master Dario Argento’s famed, witchcraft-infused “Three Mothers” trilogy. Starring Jessica Harper as Suzy Bannion, an American ballerina whose prestigious scholarship finds her studying in Germany, wherein propulsively horrific occurrences lead her and her classmates to suspect the school’s mistresses of foul deeds, SUSPIRIA is a fauvist visual feast.

 

As mesmerizing as it is repulsive, SUSPIRIA was co-written by Argento and Italian superstar Daria Nicolodi. With its prog-rock Goblin score, lush cinematography, and punctuated palette of bold primary colours (Argento and cinematographer Luciano Tovoli consulted Disney’s Snow White to conceptualize the film’s Technicolor-printed hues), it has cast a spell over audiences for the past half-century. (ALICIA FLETCHER)