Review - Suspiria (2018)

Suspiria (2018) is a remake of a cult Italian horror film from the seventies about a dance academy in Berlin. I'm sure plenty of people read that and were already turned off from the film (and this review) by that description and honestly, I don't think they're wrong to. This film is undeniably an arthouse horror film and so no matter how much you love Call Me By Your Name (the previous film from Luca Guadagnino), this is a film you may seriously need to consider seeing. More on that later though. Back to the plot, where we follow a dancer named Susie who has just arrived from America and seems to have some kind of aura around her that captivates the other dancers and the dance teachers. Where the plot goes is fascinating and unexpected, even for people who have seen the original film. Hell, one of the big plot twists from the original is revealed very early in the film but I won't ruin that in case you don't know it. All of these things are laid out slowly but very deliberately and with enough ambiguities to confound for weeks after.

What I'm not entirely sure I was expecting to love was the acting in this film but here we are, with a whole array of fascinating performances. Being a film where much of the dialogue is in German or French, many of the performers are relative unknowns which was fine by me, especially as they're all great. Going to the performers you may have heard of though, one who I don't think I'd really seen before was Mia Goth. She plays Susie's friend and gets to work with a range of emotions and moments, all done with a completely believable edge. Chloe Grace-Moretz is briefly in the film as a girl who flees the academy in the opening minutes and so while I can't say I loved her here as much as in Miseducation of Cameron Post, she does a great job too. Getting the most to do and doing it deftly is Tilda Swinton who I don't think has put a single foot wrong in anything I've seen. She plays both Madame Blanc, the key instructor at the academy and Dr. Josef Kempler, the sole male main character in the film and DAMN. Swinton plays both of these roles completely differently and it becomes so easy to forget that she plays the both of them. My biggest surprise of the bunch however was Dakota Johnson. For the last few years, she's been known as the heroine of the Fifty Shades franchise but recently, she's proved that she can genuinely act and very well. Between A Bigger Splash (an earlier Guadagnino work) and the recent Bad Times at the El Royale (which I HIGHLY recommend), she's a genuine force to reckon with and this is her best work to date. Johnson has a huge character arc to play as Susie but equally, she starts the film very quiet and mysterious. Even with that, you always believe that she genuinely does have that mysticism that everyone says she does and I couldn't even say that about the original Suspiria.

After I saw and fell in love with Call Me By Your Name, the first thing I wanted to know was what that director was doing next and a Suspiria remake was not what I expected at all. What shocked me was that it is actually a completely perfect fit. For those who have seen CMBYN (and if you haven't, get on that ASAP), one of the most brilliant things about it is how you become utterly immersed in the beautiful world of Northern Italy, to the point where I was sometimes on the verge of drooling. Guadagnino flips that violently for Suspiria and in a way I was hugely surprised by. With the world of war torn Berlin, haunted by something not of this world, you remain immersed but instead of pure delight and awe at the luscious environments, there is a sick, constant dread in your stomach.. Initially, it's just a feeling of dread with little to back it up but eventually, the much more explicitly horror elements rise up from the floor boards and during the final climax (which I obviously won't ruin) I was actually shaking. No film has ever had that kind of effect on me and I credit that spell to Guadagnino. Before I wrap up though, it's also worth mentioning the score and cinematography. The cinematography is so completely different to both CMBYN and the original Suspiria yet by carving its own identity, it makes a mark and so very many shots are etched onto my brain. Equally, Thom Yorke what off Radiohead does the score and taps into the elements of Radiohead's sound that I really like. Much of it works to keep you on edge throughout and there is one track in particular that I have been listening to plenty since I saw the film because of the beauty and haunting nature that so perfectly encapsulate the film.

Maybe the note I want to end on is that Suspiria (2018) is very little like the original film and that's a brilliant thing. While you're watching, you're not thinking "Oh, this is like that bit in the original". Instead, you are swept up by film making that at times is so powerful it feels sickening. I've only seen the film once but once it is properly released this Friday, I know I'll go see it at least one more time, just to try and recapture that magic. So with all that said, it probably shouldn't be a surprise that I give Suspiria a hearty