Supernatural horror film in which a woman joins a world renowned dance troupe following the mysterious disappearance of their lead dancer.
Some of the horrific scenes superbly recall Andrzej Zulawski's work, but others don't quite match that menace, instead evoking Rob Zombie's brand of hellish design.
Luca Guadagnino has reworked Dario Argento's 1977 blood-drenched horror into a highly stylised and self-reflexive performance piece.
Oversaturated and lacking agility, Guadagnino’s work doesn’t quite find its true rhythm.
A beautiful, resonant feminist fairy tale at least half grounded in German postwar realities.
This isn’t an atrocity on the level of, say, Rob Zombie’s Halloween — but it is a horror designed to test your patience rather than your nerves.
Although Guadagnino drains the film of Argento’s kaleidoscopic colour schemes (this might be the greyest, darkest, rainiest film since Seven), his preference for body horror over jump scares creates a lingering sense of despair and unease that synchs up well with a film that seems to be grappling – albeit abstractly – with the complex ways in which guilt and denial are inextricably bound up in any attempts to break the spell of the past.
This grandiose remake of Dario Argento’s dreamy 1977 masterpiece conjures up all the right witchy ingredients but lacks the original’s joyful abandon.
The horror? How Suspiria leads the way for arthouse scares.
General release. Check local listings for show times.