Review: SUSPIRIA is Complete and Utter Bloody Dark Madness!
I've been looking forward to seeing director Luca Guadagnino's (Call Me by Your Name) remake of Suspiria since the first footage was screen at CinemaCon earlier this year. The scene that was shared was absolutely insane and horrifically savage, but that was just a little appetizer compared to the other brutally dark a treacherous places that this movie goes.
The trailers for the film are great and they do a fantastic job at building up the suspense and the world that the story is set in, but those trailers don't even touch on the ruthless and twisted psychological journey that this horror film will take audiences on.
Suspiria is not for the faint of heart, it is a slow burn kind of film that escalates into a vicious blood-fueled nightmarish terror of things that you cannot unsee. This is just one messed up movie that could drive weak souls to the brink of madness. I personally had some seriously jacked-up nightmares the night that I saw the movie.
I'm a big fan of the original 1977 Dario Argento-directed movie. I discovered it in high school and that film is a psychedelic mind trip. This remake is not that! While the core concept and elements are the same, this remake is wrapped up in a whole new package as it dives so much deeper into the merciless hysteria.
This is one of those movies that must be experienced to fully understand what I'm talking about. At the same time I think audiences are going to be split with the movie. Some people are going to love it while other hate it because it’s a very artsy kind of horror movie. I don't think there's going to be a lot of in-between.
The film is set at a world-renowned dance company where an unspoken darkness dwells. This darkness engulfs the artistic director, an ambitious young dancer, and a grieving psychotherapist. While some of them will succumb to the nightmare, others will finally wake up.
The movie has an incredible cast that includes Dakota Johnson as Susie, Tilda Swinton, Lutz Ebersdorf, Chloe Moretz, Mia Goth, Renée Soutendijk, Jessica Harper, Sylvie Testud, Angela Winkler, Malgorzata Bela, and Ingrid Caven. They all give wonderful performances in the film, but this is easily Dakota Johnson's best performance to date. She gives quite a haunting performance.
As I said before, Suspiria is a slow burn story, but when it gets going it's absolutely relentless and it all leads to an ending that will leave most audiences speechless.
