By Melissa Antoinette Garza
I wanted to like this so much more than I did. It’s a beautiful film. The artistry and stylistic choices are gorgeous to stare at. Tilda Swinton is breathtakingly brilliant in her multiple performances throughout. Jessica Harper was a wonderful surprise in a minor supporting role that she shined in. The cast being a full fem ensemble is something that I appreciate. It is a rarity in any film and a near impossibility in horror.
SUSPIRIA (2018)is set in 1977 and follows Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson) as she moves to Berlin to attend the Tanz Dance Academy. This is something she has wanted since childhood. Her main dance instructor Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton) takes a liking to her, but has a secret agenda. All the teachers do. They are witches and wish to use Susie as a young body for their new leader and democratically elected, Mother Markos (Tilda Swinton). Blanc develops true affection for Susie and is not sold on Markos as a master. Still, she reluctantly goes along with the plan.
Meanwhile, Dr. Josef Klemperer (Tilda Swinton) researches the dance academy believing something sinister is afoot. He also longs for his old love Anke (Jessica Harper) who was killed in a concentration camp. The witches use this information against Klemperer to distract him and maintain control.
In the end, there is a twist that is both well-thought out and completely irritating. It’s a smart ending, but it doesn’t play well. It’s hard to articulate, but I’ll try to do so without spoiling.
Just because a writer has the ability to take an intellectual avenue rather than a simple or straight-forward one, doesn’t mean they should. It’s pretentious. Dario Argento is an artist. His films are mind-altering spectacles of insanity put to a magnificent color scheme with a killer soundtrack, but they’re never pretentious. They’re smart. They’re clever, but it’s purposeful. His manner makes the story better and adds a flow and groove that just lures the viewer in. It can subdue one into safety only to cause alarm or apprehension with a shift in hue alone. It’s powerful and he’s perfected it. Contrastingly, David Kajganich and Luca Guadagnino’s method is complex for the sake of being complex. It’s as if they felt threatened by the horror genre or maybe felt smarter than it so they decided to force subplots and swerves that stripped the intrigue and mystery away. They stole something from the audience in order to preserve their own ego. I hope they get past that because they do have something to offer in the way of storytelling if they could get out of their own way.
The conclusion showcases an element of surrealism meeting realism that again just didn’t work. I wanted it to and I know they wanted it to, but it didn’t. It was too much. It was too heavy. It was too depressing.
Beyond the story alone there are other flaws. Obviously, I adore the original SUSPIRIA (1977). Dario Argento’s films speak to me on a primal level. At its core that what the remake missed. There wasn’t the absorption and the suspension of disbelief that came so easily with the ‘77 version.
There are a few ways that the remake failed to get at that level. As much as I hate to say it, Dakota Johnson could not muster what was needed for this role. In the first half hour, I thought she was doing fine. Sadly beyond that point, she’s wooden. Part of it is that Tilda Swinton is so phenomenal. Swinton owns the viewer so easily with a lip curl so to stand next to her, you have to be amazing. I can tell that Johnson REALLY wanted to be good. This was not phoned in, but she just didn’t have the chops.
Another flaw was the flow. There is a subplot involving Klemperer that comes together and also flashbacks that tell another part of the story, but they’re put together poorly. I don’t know if this was an editing issue or if the scenes were intended to be in that order, but the pace makes a 2 1/2 hour film seem much longer.
With all of the negative, there were some great positives. The dance routines were fabulous. When Markos arrives and all goes red, it’s gorgeous. The makeup is done very well. The special effects are splendid. The settings and retro 70s vibe is perfected. Tilda is a fem Goddess supreme who could never do anything wrong even if she tried. I have a crush on her. I have such a fem crush on her. I love her so much which is why I wanted to love this movie. She is just all parts fem and masc and fab in one gorgeous woman that looks like David Bowie -and in ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE (2013) she did a love scene with Tom Hiddleston who is a total fem boy fox! Sorry, I’m rambling. I’m high, but seriously go watch ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE. That is all sorts of yum!
As for this – it’s not YUM. It’s watchable. It’s pretty, but it definitely leaves you wanting more. This is a film you can watch once and be done with whereas the original is something I can see multiple times a year and never grow tired of.
Scared Stiff Rating: 6/10
