Suspiria (2018)

 

Berlin, 1977.  As the city struggles to come to grips with a series of terrorist actions by the militant left-wing Red Army Faction, dance student Patricia Hingle tries to persuade her psychotherapist that something even more sinister is afoot at the Markos Dance Academy, where she studies.  She believes that the school's matrons are a coven of witches who will consume her for their magical empowerment.

The good doctor does not take Ms Hingle's claims of witchcraft particularly seriously, though he does believe she is genuinely frightened.  When she abruptly vanishes, he begins to become concerned.  And so he should: the school most definitely is a coven of witches. 

Shortly after Patricia vanishes, a new student arrives from the US.  Suzy Bannion has no formal training, but there is raw power in her that the witches immediately sense.  They move immediately to bring her into the school, intent on harnessing this power for their own sinister purposes.

I found this remake of Dario Argento's (in my opinion, overrated) 1977 horror film to be very interesting due to how profoundly it differs from the film on which it is ostensibly based.  The very first scenes of the film establish this very different approach.  They demonstrate that this movie will be visually sombre, with lots of shadow and muted colours, in direct opposition to the deliberately garish primary colours of Argento's film.  Similarly, the soundtrack is subdued instead of bombastic.

This remake also avoids many of the narrative flaws of the original. In the original, the strangeness of the academy is very open and in your face.  Maggots shower from the ceiling, the building floor plan clearly makes no sense, and creepiness abounds.  It's not the kind of place that any halfway sensible person would choose to stay, and it's hard to believe that the weirdness would not be common knowledge.  The coven here is far more subtle in its activities.

I have to give the film kudos for actually making the dance academy setting explicitly relevant to the plot.  The link was more tenuous in the original.

On the other hand, the new version introduces its own narrative issues. I think it exposes too much of what is going on to the audience too early, and keeps it from the cast too long. The movie tends to be a bit indulgent in its use of time in general, and could easily have lost 20 minutes.

Then there is the climactic confrontation, which - while I appreciate what they were going for - was a bit of a misfire for me. I was irked that suddenly the entirety of the young and attractive female cast were naked for it, for one thing: this seemed unnecessary and a bit gauche.  It was also a victim of the film's "over long" issue. It took far longer for what actually happened to happen than it needed to. Perhaps they thought the audience needed the time to process the 'surprise' of what happened. This audience was not surprised at all, though, and thought it had been thoroughly telegraphed already.

A brave effort with some good elements, but not ultimately a success.