NOTE: This review is part of THE FINAL GIRL FILM CLUB. If you have not experienced the wonder that is STACIE PONDER get over there right quick! She’s not only whip-smart she’s the final word on all things horror!Â

INDELIBLE SCENE(S):Â
- Make sure there are seatbelts in that taxicab HARPER, the symphony that is the opening to SUSPIRIA is a real head rocker
- The M.C. ESCHER wallpaper
- Close up of knife in heart
- Maggot rain
- Landing safely in a pile of…barbed wire!
- The missing gargoyle and the blind man’s dog
- The creepy kid and the maid
- Don’t knock over that peacock lamp!
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A missing gargoyle, you say?! I AM going to have to watch this again!
I never actually saw this, but I almost crapped my pants when I saw the trailer…that woman brushing her hair and turning round to reveal the dead skull face!
The first 5 minutes are the scariest part of the movie! A lot of people kvetch that they should’ve saved that great stuff for the finale (and, yeah, the finale IS disappointing) but I love the beginning of the movie. That score is off the hook! And the first death? Yikes! One of the scariest (If not THE #1 scariest) things I have ever seen in a movie. This is the ONLY movie I have ever turend off because it was “Too scary”!
I have to admit that when I first saw this on VHS back in the late 80’s I was disappointed. Why? Well back in 77 I was one of those Gen-Xers who were TRAUMATIZED buy the TV trailer for the movie. You know, “Skull Lady”! Well, when this came out on VHS in the late 80’s I rented it thinking that I was going to confront the movie that wrecked my childhood. OK, the murder at the beginning was a “Holy S**T!” moment as was that scene with the seeing eye dog! But, like others, I found the ending to be a letdown and to top it all off THERE WAS NO SKULL LADY IN THIS!!!! WTF!?! When this movie came out on DVD earlier in this decade I decided to get it and now the movie has grown on me. That Goblin soundtrack has to be blasted through a good home ent. system! Creepy! Those over saturated reds! I don’t want to give anymore away but this movie is worth it! The DVD even has the “Skull Lady” trailer! WOOHOO!!!!
Like it a lot more upon second viewing (and, truthfully, upon replaying it over and over in my head).
I was lucky enough to have first experienced ‘Suspiria’ on the big screen (not in its original run but a two house theatre near me plays midnight monster movies on the weekends).
While I think that the film is visually stunning (Argento is like David Lynch in that some shots are like beautiful still paintings and plot be damned), I do think areas are severely lacking so its not “perfect.”
For one – who has a room full of barbed wire anyway? Would even maniac witches waste a whole room on the idea that maybe one day someone will fall in?