As a long time horror film buff, I absolutely loved Suspiria. Released in 1977, Suspiria is director Dario Argento’s masterpiece.
The movie is an incredible visual and aural nightmare, with amazing set pieces and a groundbreaking score from the Italian progressive rock band Goblin, who also performed the soundtrack for the original Dawn of the Dead.
Like Phantasm, Suspiria was born of a very personal filmmaking vision, it’s way more of a visual experience than one that relies on linear storytelling, and there’s truly no horror film like it.
As regular TG Daily readers know, I’m generally against remakes, and although there are talented people involved in rebooting Suspiria, I think remaking it could be a big mistake on the level of Halloween.
In remaking Halloween, the story was very simple, and it was the artistry that John Carpenter brought to the film that raised it above the usual B movie fodder. Without a strong director at the helm, it’s just another guy in a mask running around with a knife movie. Similarly, another director taking on Suspiria will probably turn it into just another horror film.
Yes, David Gordon Green, who’s onboard to remake Suspiria, is a talented and versatile filmmaker (Pineapple Express, Undertow, George Washington), and Rob Zombie has a lot of potential as a filmmaker too, but remaking Halloween was borderline blasphemy, and any hack could have come aboard to tackle it.
Similarly, this could be another mis-step for Green’s career after the disaster of Your Highness, and the middling comedy The Sitter.
Dario Argento has always sworn he would fight a remake of Suspiria with everything in his being, and clearly he lost the battle. The original film will always stand as a masterpiece of the genre, as will Halloween, no matter the remakes, it’s just a shame to see Dimension plundering two horror classics like this for little more than a quick buck.
