Suspiria remake (Luca Guadagnino)

Sad Professor

First trailer featuring excerpts of Thom Yorke's score.

Slydice

That looks like ... what I remember of .. 1970s horror films from video shop in the 1980s

As the trailer progressed though, I thought that maybe amazon have got a new tv series and have put some effort in .. maybe like stranger things / dark

but then it said movie.. so I'm guessing their going for one of those 1970s horror films I remember

It looks cold war (ish). Is the original Suspiria good?

Harry Palmr

I dislike sequels as a rule but that appears to capture the essence of the Argento original.

Rothko

Slydice wrote: »

It looks cold war (ish). Is the original Suspiria good?

Yep, it's definitely worth a watch.

BrookieD

Being made watch the original film at 7yrs old scared me for life, big fat NOPE from me on this. Can not watch horror to this day.......

El Duda

The original is fantastic.

This look interesting, but not because its a Suspiria remake. Why can't it just be an original film that is heavily influenced by Suspiria?

My horror predictions for 2018...

Hereditary looks incredible and will be the stand out.

Suspiria remake will be ok.

Halloween remake will be completely pointless and average at best.

Tony EH

Really don't know what to feel about this.

The original is a quirky, interesting, horror classic from my childhood and one of teh few Argento films that I can still watch today.

Tony EH

El Duda wrote: »

Halloween remake will be completely pointless and average at best.

Isn't it a sequel, not a remake? It's essentially 'Halloween II' reimagined.

Still pointless, nonetheless.

Slydice

https://twitter.com/suspiriamovie/status/1008808076000968704

El Duda

El Duda wrote: »

The original is fantastic.

This look interesting, but not because its a Suspiria remake. Why can't it just be an original film that is heavily influenced by Suspiria?

My horror predictions for 2018...

Hereditary looks incredible and will be the stand out.

Suspiria remake will be ok.

Halloween remake will be completely pointless and average at best.

Fell at the first hurdle!


Don't listen to me guys.

Slydice

oooooo kay then :eek:

conorhal

El Duda wrote: »

The original is fantastic.

This look interesting, but not because its a Suspiria remake. Why can't it just be an original film that is heavily influenced by Suspiria?

My horror predictions for 2018...

Hereditary looks incredible and will be the stand out.

Suspiria remake will be ok.

Halloween remake will be completely pointless and average at best.

Suspiria is so very much 'of it's time' that I don't quite understand the point of a remake, besides, we already got that original film that is heavily influenced by Suspiria, it was called Black Swan.

brevity

Creepy.

Harry Palmr

Suspiria was the first of the Three Mothers Trilogy for Argento wonder if they'll follow up likewise with new versions of Inferno and The Mother of Tears

p to the e

What's with the "old lad" with the clearly obvious makeup? Is this supposed to be some twist?

Tony EH

Oh dear, I see there's a brief shot of an Ahnenpass in that trailer. It looks like they're going to try and add some bullshit "nazi" angle into this. :rolleyes:

p to the e

p to the e wrote: »

What's with the "old lad" with the clearly obvious makeup? Is this supposed to be some twist?

Well this was a bit pointless.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/12/tilda-swinton-posed-as-an-old-man-in-elaborate-hoax-for-her-latest-film

Tony EH

/\

Ugh. That's...disappointing.

I was interested in this at first, but the more I see, that interest fades real bad.

Fysh

I liked the original quite a bit (though my perception of it has been coloured by also seeing several of Argento's later, much crappier films shortly afterwards) but I think that Guadagnino is probably a much better director than Argento.

Having liked his last 2 films and seeing the strong cast for this, I'm on for seeing what we end up with.

camz09

Anyone planning on watching this Halloween night at the Lighthouse?

I'm very much looking forward to it as a Guadagnino fan, but going to treat it as a separate, stand alone non-remake film that just happened to have the same title as the 1977 film lol

johnny_ultimate

Suspiria 2018 is a whole lot of things, but conventional remake it is not. Guadagnino's film is only vaguely similar to Argento's - certain key aspects of the premise aside, these are films operating with entirely different motivations and registers. Right down to the visuals - more Fassbinder than giallo, a few lurid moments aside - this is different in almost every conceivable way.

Which is mostly a good thing - mostly. I'm very pro remakes / adaptations being their own beasts, because what the hell is the point in a slavish copy? This is a languid, rather long film, but despite being aggressively, almost tauntingly unrushed it's rarely boring. There's so much going on that it's a curious, compelling beast even when it doesn't actually work. The moments of bloody release exist - not least

an impeccably discomforting, grotesque 'dance puppetry' scene

which is a definite standout - but are few and very far between, but they largely land when they do. And in literalising so many themes and subtexts, it's certainly a novel interpretation of ideas that were merely whispers first time around.

It's a weaker, more inconsistent film stylistically than Call Me By Your Name, but that's not to say it isn't a fascinating creation to behold. Right from the first scene, with its intriguingly disjointed, frantic editing, it pulled me in. There's a few decisions that didn't sit well - Wong Kar Wai may have gotten away with gratuitous slo-mo in the 90s, but it just looks kinda cheap here as it typically does - but it's crafted with the sort of idiosyncratic flair that wouldn't have been the case if they went with a more conventional director. Editing, cinematography, sound, even set design - it's all designed with purpose, even when the purposes kind of clash with each other.

Perhaps the least satisfying thing about it is that I often felt like Guadagnino was making a few films at once. That's not entirely fair - I can see some of the links between the dance school sects, the deep political divisions of 1970s Berlin, Tilda Swinton's intriguing multi-role performances, and a sombre character study of a man coming to terms with the spectre of the Holocaust. It's a film about past / present / future, trauma, the divided self, all that kind of stuff. But while all that's there - text rather than subtext - there's still the impression for decent stretches that some scenes are the witch film, other ones are a very different film. It's an interesting mix, but one that never wholly gelled for me even when the links become entirely apparent. You could easily argue

the doctor is the film's real protagonist - or at least one of them - but I felt that transition came across as jarring rather than organic. Still, props to Tilda Swinton by introducing all sorts of funky messaging by playing the character - and the casting of Jessica Harper as his wife adds a hint of subtexutal playfulness in a film where most subtleties are thrown out the goddamn window

.

So it's frustrating, and a few key scenes aside not at all scary really. Frankly, I'd barely consider it a horror movie at all despite sequences of witchcraft-heavy bloodletting. It's both a triumphant example of what happens when an auteur is let off the leash, and a case study in the dangers of that. I'm aware I'm being fence-sitty in that respect, but I find it hard to come down too hard or ravish it with praise either. I guess I come back to interesting - that lazy, overused word, but one which feels wholly appropriate here. Suspiria may be a mess, but it's a hell of a mess, and I for one can live with that.

Harry Palmr

The reviews are in for the main release and it's bit of a bust. Looks like all the good bits were in the trailer (not for the first time eh?) which of course didn't include long scenes of people talking boring stuff.

Tony EH

Harry Palmr wrote: »

The reviews are in for the main release and it's bit of a bust. Looks like all the good bits were in the trailer (not for the first time eh?) which of course didn't include long scenes of people talking boring stuff.

Kermode wasn't too hot on it.

johnny_ultimate

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Looks like all the good bits were in the trailer (not for the first time eh?)

This is an absolute nonsense suggestion TBH. The really good bits in the film are lengthy, extended sequences - if you catch a glimpse of them in the trailer (exactly what a trailer is meant to do), said glimpses do absolutely no justice to seeing it unfold at length in context.

The film is divisive, and some will absolutely dislike it - as I explained at length above, I personally think it's a mixed bag. But critical opinion is suitably divided, with plenty of positive alongside the negative. I would urge anyone interested in it to actually watch the thing - because it is at very least a very different film from the original, and deserves a fair, proper appraisal rather than being dismissed so immediately.

Outlaw Pete

God this was awful.

Loved the original and there is just no comparison between the two. They're night and day. Even without the comparison though it's just a borefest. It's not scary, nor erotic, just soulless indulgence.

It tries so damn hard to be something it's not also but fails dismally. The performances and score are easily the best thing about it but they're not so good that they can save it or even make it worth watching for me.

El Diablo Blanco

Very polarising film (much like last year's mother!, which I enjoyed and many detested.)

Honestly really liked this, and I wasn't expecting to. Having heard reviews of it being boring, overly long and pretentious, I had really low expectations, but I was mesmerised throughout. The 70s vibe is captured superbly, and the sense of unease and foreboding is palpable.

I found Call Me By Your Name to be a very immersive experience, and Guadagnino's Suspiria was much the same experience.

Some aspects didn't work for me, but on the whole, it was visually arresting, and engaging up to (and during) its WTF?! climax. Great performances across the board, especially Johnson and Swinton.

Its main plot difference from Argento's film, revealed in the final act, elevates it above the original, in my view, but other subplots like the doctor's arc were a bit less interesting. Both films respectably stand on their own. Personally, this was one of the better films I've seen this year.

BuyersRemorse

Well that was miserable.

The cinematic equivelent of one of those tossers on Masterchef who present a plate of ingredients to the judges, calling it a 'deconstructed trifle'. The historical aspects are little more than window dressing to a film which sacrifices everything which made the original so great in pursuit of an attempt at profundity.

Frank O. Pinion

Brilliant film, I'd put it tied for #1 with Mandy. I can see modern film audiences being put off by its length, but I loved every minute of it. Surprised it got zero Oscar nominations.

Tony EH

Well, that was incredibly over long and self indulgent. A wickedly boring film that could have told its story without all the gibberish. Plus that shoehorned holocaust angle was tiresome in the extreme. Utterly, utterly, pointless.

Apart from some good and, frankly, nasty visuals, and a relatively pleasing twist on the original, there's not much happening here.

As said above, there's little similarity between this and Argento's original and in many ways that's a good thing. But, it easily could have been called something else entirely and achieved the same results.

The entire Klemperer subplot could have been cut from this as well as several minutes elsewhere and nothing would have changed, except the boredom factor.

Bottom line is, the film takes far, far, too long to get to where it's going and when we get there, the destination is pretty disappointing.

Padraig Mor

Tony EH wrote: »

Well, that was incredibly over long and self indulgent. A wickedly boring film that could have told its story without all the gibberish. Plus that shoehorned holocaust angle was tiresome in the extreme. Utterly, utterly, pointless.

Apart from some good and, frankly, nasty visuals, and a relatively pleasing twist on the original, there's not much happening here.

As said above, there's little similarity between this and Argento's original and in many ways that's a good thing. But, it easily could have been called something else entirely and achieved the same results.

The entire Klemperer subplot could have been cut from this as well as several minutes elsewhere and nothing would have changed, except the boredom factor.

Bottom line is, the film takes far, far, too long to get to where it's going and when we get there, the destination is pretty disappointing.

I'd agree with much of the above........but I still liked it. I did have to go reading on d'internet though to figure out the ending. Potted review:

Suspiria (2018) - remake of Dario Argento's legendary giallo. American girl arrives at foreboding Berlin dance academy and quickly finds thing are.....weird....very weird. Yip, it's actually a witches' coven! Far from a straight remake, this is its own film. Definite left of centre, and has an overall 'European arthouse' air that will not be to everyone's taste. Final reel loses the plot a bit. Never thought I'd say something like this, but it also features some incredible (modern) dancing!

Tony EH

Padraig Mor wrote: »

I'd agree with much of the above........but I still liked it. I did have to go reading on d'internet though to figure out the ending.

Well, there was stuff to like alright,

like the scene where the witches have put a hex on Susie Bannion and while she dances, she kills Olga - the girl who wants out of the coven.

But, that is kind of rendered pointless, when we find out later that Bannion is actually the Mother Suspiriorum all the time.

I suppose I just think 2018's 'Suspirira' is more concerned with its gimmicks than Argento's 1977 film, which was all gimmick. But still remains interesting to look at.