Category: Horror

SUSPIRIA (2018)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: Luca Guadagnino
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Chloë Grace Moretz
My Rating: 8/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 66%

PLOT: Berlin, 1977 – A young American woman (Johnson) joins an elite ballet troupe run by Madame Blanc (Swinton), but sinister events occur that lead her to believe that not all is as it seems…


[SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW – CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED]

In 1977, Italian director Dario Argento released a horror film called Suspiria.  I have never seen it, but I am aware of its place in film history.  A brief scan of Wikipedia provides these tidbits:

  • It’s #18 on Entertainment Weekly’s list of the 25 scariest films ever.
  • One website called it “the closest a filmmaker has come to capturing a nightmare on film.”
  • It is frequently cited for its use of vibrant colors, particularly when it comes to the copious amounts of blood present.
  • It is director Argento’s highest-grossing film in the U.S.

I mention all this to reassure readers that, even though I have NOT seen the original, I am aware of its legacy.  I also want to stress that I do not believe a thorough knowledge of the original is necessary for enjoyment, because this was one of the most supremely disturbing horror films I’ve ever sat through.  I don’t know how closely it follows the original, but who cares?

The movie is entertainment, but portions of it are so grotesque that I found myself wondering, “Should I be enjoying this?  What’s wrong with me if I am enjoying this?”  I have a couple of issues with the ending, which I can’t discuss without spoiling some key plot developments, but aside from that, this was a riveting film…but, again, a very disturbing one.

The plot: A young woman, Susie, travels from Ohio to join an elite ballet troupe in Berlin, run with an iron hand by the imposing Madame Blanc, played by the shape-shifting Tilda Swinton.  Susie thoroughly impresses Swinton at the audition, and is hired almost immediately and shown to her dorm room (all the dancers and instructors live under one roof).  The next day, a fellow dancer, Olga, storms out of a rehearsal after expressing concern about Patricia, another dancer who has gone missing, and suggests Madame Blanc had something to do with her disappearance.

This sets up the first of several intensely disturbing sequences in the movie.  Olga tries to leave the dormitory, but gets turned around and winds up trapped in a small rehearsal space, one floor below the main rehearsal space.  Blanc asks the new girl, Susie, to dance a particularly demanding routine.  As Susie throws herself into the dance (with some striking choreography), Olga, one floor below, suddenly finds herself flung through the air by unseen forces, apparently in concert with Susie’s movements above.  She gets tossed around like a life-size voodoo doll, from one wall to the other, down to the floor and up again, and I found myself thinking of poor Chrissy Watkins from Jaws as she was shaken from side to side before being eaten alive.

I haven’t even mentioned the grotesque things that start happening to her limbs.  Or how the dance instructors use meat hooks for clean-up afterwards.

And that’s just in the first two acts of the movie.

A sense of foreboding suffuses nearly every shot of Suspiria.  It’s a stress sandwich that doesn’t have the kind of cathartic scream moments one might expect from the horror genre.  With Suspiria, it’s all about the slow burn, followed by moments of revelatory horror and eye-popping imagery, particularly when it comes to Susie’s dream sequences and the final revelation of what happened to Olga and Patricia.

But I STILL haven’t mentioned the climax.  [AGAIN…SPOILER ALERT.]

All of the quease-inducing tension and visuals are nothing, NOTHING, I say, when compared to the finale, a grand guignol nightmare of blood, violent death, disembowelment, and gratuitous female nudity.  It was at that point that I realized: this is one of those films that you dare each other to watch, just to see how long the other will last before turning it off or throwing up.  The first couple of minutes of the climax involve more blood and off-putting makeup than any two Saw movies.  And then, just when you think it’s over, the REALLY bloody part begins.

(There is a key question to which I did not get a satisfactory answer, thus my rating of 8 instead of 10.)

I honestly don’t know who to recommend this to.  Horror aficionados, obviously, though many of them may be purists with no desire to see a 40-year-old masterpiece of the genre get the modern treatment.  I stress again that I don’t believe knowledge of the original is necessary to enjoy (if that’s the right word) this movie.  If it were made in a vacuum, with no original from 1977, I believe Suspiria would be able to stand alone as a new horror classic.

Just don’t eat anything before watching it.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

By Marc S. Sanders

There’s no question that George A. Romero’s 1968 classic Night Of The Living Dead is a pioneering film in horror and suspense. Without it, we don’t get The Walking Dead or World War Z or Pride & Prejudice & Zombies or endless shoot em up gore filled video games that turn our minds to mush.

Romero’s film is not a favorite of mine but I can’t deny its importance or the merits that got the film into the National Film Registry.

A young couple approach a grave to pay respect and leave flowers. In the background is a man walking oddly who then unleashes a terrorizing pursuit of them. One of them manages to get away and eventually take refuge with others in a nearby isolated house.

The leader of this group known as Ben, manages to board up every door and window. Fortunately, the television works and newscasts inform us of a government response to an epidemic of mass killings from “flesh eating ghouls” otherwise known as the dead coming back to life. The word “zombie” is never used in this film (though I do recall a dame calling The Three Stooges zombies in one of their classic shorts). Debates then arise as to whether these survivors make a run for it, stay put or hide in the basement.

Romero really could care less about any of his characters. He cares most about his new invention of monster; not a vampire or a mummy or even a creature from the black lagoon. The most developing dimension he offers is to go from showing one ghoul to showing 50 ghouls all at once with the barriers of the house coming apart and the attempts at escape unexpectedly coming undone.

He also doesn’t much care for explaining the science of this horror. Sure the ghouls eat flesh but did you know what else they do? They pick up rocks to break windows and stab their prey with gardening tools. Go figure!

It all works, especially with the government news footage set against a Washington DC backdrop. Look! The Capital! Put an actor in a military uniform, carrying a briefcase and have him get in and out of a black sedan, and now you’re convinced this is some serious shit you’re dealing with here.

I imagine it especially worked more effectively in 1968 amid the fears of a nuclear apocalypse and presidential assassinations, along with men in space and on the moon covered by monotone news reports. Then again, maybe this was just drive in movie escapism spoof from all that serious stuff. If Romero had the unlimited funds, he might have coaxed Walter Cronkite to headline the intermittent news stories and updates. Cronkite would have advised us best on how to dispatch an undead marauder. “A single shot to the head is what the General advises,” Cronkite would have emphasized.

For film aficionados and students, Night Of The Living Dead is necessary material to cover. Much of fear and suspense is simply covered by crowding a caption with people in dirty, loose fitting clothes (monster makeup was too expensive for Romero’s budget). Since it’s a black and white film, go with chocolate sauce for blood like Hitchcock did, and have your monster chomp on a turkey leg. Yup! The audience will buy that is an elbow or a knee, perhaps.

Night Of The Living Dead is also a significant piece for its main protagonist, Ben, played by Duane Jones, one of the first African American heroes to lead a film. Race is never acknowledged here which is hard to believe amid the prominent racial tensions of the sixties. Yet here is a character (albeit two dimensional like everyone else in the film) that audiences of the time accepted without any consideration for his appearance despite being the only black character in the film. The zombie plague seems to have only affected the white populace of Pennsylvania. It’s refreshing to see Jones carry through with the role. He takes it all seriously, and you pay attention to his commitment even if he’s just hammering a nail into a board.

The other surprise to me is that I’d never heard a mention of the ending to this film. It comes out of nowhere and is certainly never implied and yet your jaw drops. You’re either gonna die laughing at it, or maybe you’ll think it’s tragic, or maybe you’ll hate it. One thing for sure it reminds me again that Romero loves his flesh eating ghouls much more than he ever cared for his heroes.