My "Insta-Watch Queue" has close to about 80 things sitting in it, collecting cyber-dust. Wonderful titles like "Evil Dead" and "Yojimbo" sit patiently waiting for me to move my ass from my desk chair to my bed so I can watch them and be happy and lazy and sleepy and all those other things watching movies while laying in bed makes me. So. Last night as I'm flipping through the 80 items in my queue (having at one point scanned the newly added sections and contemplated adding in like 14 more things I know I'll never watch), I come across a little horror "gem" called "Suspiria" that so many on Netflix have hailed as "quintessential horror for the horror buff". Naturally me, being the horror buff that I am, jumped all over this 1977 film like ADHD-crack headed children jump in one of those bouncy things.
The cover is, I think, a little misleading to what the movie is actually about. It shows this all-white silhouette ballerina with a huuuuuuuuuuge pool of blood in the area where her shadow would typically be. Okay, so maybe not THAT huge. I digress. The movie has, for like 5 minutes tops, ballerinas dancing about. Other than that, you probably forget it's even taking place in a school for those freakishly skinny, fugly toed misanthropes. Or that it takes place in Germany for that matter, other than this one instructor, who thunders about like an ogre (and kind of looks like one too, although she dress in black and things non-burlappy) speaks with a German accent and has her hair done up all German-like in those double bun things and did I mention already that she looks kind of like a man? German women are actually men right? Or did I get that wrong? I mean, there are some German women I might find myself in bed with, but that might be because I think they're men? Again, I digress. (At this point my conscience would like me to point out that I bear no ill toward German women, ogres OR ballerinas. Well, I might have a little distrust of ballerinas...)
<----- just your average, everyday, run-of-the-mill, batshit crazy ballerina enthusiast.Gosh, where was I? Oh yes. An American woman played by an American actress gets summoned or invited or called (however they get unsuspecting American women to fly in the middle of the night in a terrible storm) to Germany to attend (I assume) a very prestigious dance academy. Oh yeah. This movie was directed by Don Argento, who is (according to critics) a very influential Italian horror-filmmaker (film maker?). As the opening credits role, a narrator comes on to tell us that this American girl was asked to come to Germany to attend dance school. I guess either Mr. Argento felt American audiences were far too stupid to figure out why the girl is there (even though it is brought up again 10 minutes later into the film) or that the opening credits needed to keep us enticed with something other than the names of people we could care less about.
Right away I knew something was wrong. The American girl (I can't even remember her name) gets off the plane and exits the airport. Argento shows off his quirky camera skills by focusing in on some random things. Like the sliding doors to the outside. OoooOOooo, SCARY! Then again, maybe automatic sliding doors were something of a terror back in those days. I mean that show, Rescue 911 sure did a hell of a job keeping me scared about exiting/entering onto an escalator! So, after some odd camera shots and ridiculous, over-the-top, screeching music (the music for the movie had some contribution from a band called "Goblins"), she exits the airport and into one hell of a crazy storm.
She trails very hard to hail a cab and it seems the Germans aren't as willing to taxi people like our friendly New York cabbies, because they just excelerate and get her even more wet when they splash water on her. When one finally DOES stop, after pretty much throwing herself onto the cab, he doesn't even bother to help her. He doesn't even listen to her when she tells him where she wants to go. He doesn't even engage in that awkward small talk I imagine people in cabs have all the time while waiting to get from point A to point B. Nevertheless, I have resolved that, if I make it to Germany, I shall never take a cab. At least, not one from 1977.
The girl is then deposited at the dance academy. While she is lugging her two bags out of the car, a very frantic ballerina girl comes rushing out of the building. She brushes past the new arrival and goes prancing off into the stormy night like I imagine most ballerinas would do. So graceful. So creepy. Well, the American girl (I have just now gone to IMDB.com and discovered that the one I keep referring to simply as "The American Girl" is actually "Suzy" and she is played by some woman named Jessica Fletcher. I mean, Jessica Harper.) isn't even able to get into the building because some other woman (who speaks perfect English) doesn't know who she is and can't be bothered to let some other woman into the building during the middle of a horrible storm and it's probably due to witches.
Yes. That's what this movie eventually boils down to. You have to sit through 60 minutes of very weird camera shots that I think were intended to create a sense of displacement or craziness or something like that, but really just seemed....well, disjointed to a point where it was silly. Oh. And the music. Crashing cymbals, industrial noises, random beeps and bops, screeching whatever instruments and occasional screams do not add to suspenseful mood. They just add to my eventual liver failure because I have to down Aleve to get rid of the headache. I'm sure the Goblins are wonderful people, but they need to not do whatever it was they did in this movie because it was not. good.
Also, I think Mr. Argento should have just shot the whole thing in another language. I mean, most of the non-essential cast were from Italy. The movie takes place in Germany. In a prestigious, creepy dance school for witches. Harry Potter and the Wicked Tutu? Lame, I know, I know. And I could still barely understand what most of those women were saying.
I also think that there wasn't enough dancing. I mean, I know I mentioned above that I am not a huge ballerina fan, but he could have really done something to make it extra creepy! I mean, this is Germany! This is a school for weird people who think mutilating your feet is awesome! This is a place where the leader of the school is a fricking old American woman who also doesn't dance! The only dance instructor is, like I mentioned above, a freaking huge-ass tree of a (wo)man who also doesn't dance! Did I mention that her sidekick minion is some mute Romanian giant with a fascination for the American Girl's lighter? (See, I already forgot that chicks name).
One thing this movie did for me was make me realize how far cinema has come, from a technical standpoint. We can now successful recreate scenes of total and utter gruesomeness that they just couldn't effectively do back then. For instance...
The girl I mentioned that refused to let American Girl into the school? Well, they become fast friends after maggots fall from the ceiling. And then what happens to her? She falls into a pit of razor wire. Only it wasn't really razor wire. And it didn't even look close to razor wire. It looked like she fell into a pit of extension cords. I didn't even realize she was being hurt until it panned up closer and she had red markings. Only, they were in areas that hadn't been scratched up. Though I guess it doesn't matter because the rude bitch ended up having her throat sliced by a black-gloved hand. OOoooOOoo, mysterious!
After her death (45 mins into the movie or so) American Girl investigates. And naturally, more trouble ensues. I think the whole moral of this movie is that meddling Americans getting into affairs that aren't really theirs to get into cause trouble to happen. I mean, yes the whole school is run by witches and they want to kill people (I guess), but come on! They wouldn't have killed her if she would have left it all alone. The headmistress/principal/Dumbledore knew her aunt for crying out loud!
Oh yeah. There was this one particularly odd scene where the schools only pianist (blind at that) is walking home in the middle of the night with his all-black German Shepherd seeing-eye dog and he comes to this wide open plaza and suddenly the dog starts barking. The next thing you know the blind guy is shouting for someone to show themselves (not that he could even SEE the person if they did). Well, a large gargoyle/gryphon statue on a building disappears. And then the next thing you know, the dog is mauling his owners throat. I was totally confused. I had no idea WHY THE DOG KILLED HIM! WHY THE BLIND GUY?! I MEAN, WHY WOULD YOU KILL YOUR ONLY FRACKING PIANIST? WHO WILL PLAY THE MUSIC FOR THE FREAKY BALLERINAS TO DANCE TO? Then I realized that, despite being a school for dancing, little to no dancing takes place.
Update: I guess I kind of nodded off or something while watching the movie because, according to Wikipedia, the blind guy quit the school shortly before after his dog was accused of mauling the nephew to the school's headmistress. I guess the dog had a prior.
Okay so, in short, this movie was awesome.
(Oh yeah. I forgot. The girl from the beginning? Who ran out into the storm? She died. She was stabbed repeatedly in the chest, strung up with electrical wire and thrown through a stained glass ceiling. It was intense.)
Oh, another note. There are spoilers in this review. Thank you.
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