One of the most anticipated movies of the fall season, if not all of 2018 is the remake of Dario Argento’s classic horror film, Suspiria. On Thursday August 23, the first full trailer for the Luca Guadagnino film dropped, and our staff has some thoughts.
Matt Taylor (Television Editor): Suspiria is probably the best candidate for a movie that needs to be remade. Dario Argento’s original is creepy, suspenseful, and visually stunning, but horrid dubbing and embarrassing dialogue have made it more of a camp classic, as opposed to a horror masterpiece.
What makes this trailer so exciting is that it reveals how different Luca Guadagnino’s take on the source material will be, while also confirming to viewers that this movie will be faithful to the original’s tone and basic structure. All the expected images are here, including mysterious corridors, decomposing witch bodies, and haunting dance routines.
But it all seems different enough to make Suspiria seem fresh and exciting. Even better, Tilda Swinton’s dialogue in the trailer – a couple of lines about what it means to “dance the dance of another” – presents the possibility that this movie will provide some meta-commentary on remakes? That’s an exciting prospect, and one of the many reasons Suspiria remains my most anticipated film left in 2018.
Josh B Taylor (Contributor): Watching this new trailer for Suspiria definitely has me more interested in checking this film out in November, but also raises a few more questions that we’ll find out soon as it’s in theaters.
I get the feeling that Dakota Johnson’s portrayal of Susie Bannion might not be like Jessica Harper’s from the original Suspiria. It feels more like she’s part of the witchcraft taking place in the dance academy. Now, this might be because (from the trailer at least) the perspective is of the psychiatrist (Lutz Ebersdorf) investigating the academy after the disappearance from Chloë Grace Moretz’s character, Partricia Hingle.
However, when another student, Sara (Mia Goth), starts to worry about Susie; thinking she’s part of them, and making a deal with the academy — she starts searching around the school, like the original Suzy did in Dario’s Suspiria.
Needless to say, after watching this trailer, and the teaser again to watch both of them back to back, I am definitely hooked/interested in checking this movie out this November at a theater near me!
Ann Hale (Horror Editor): As most horror fans will tell you, the original Suspiria is a staple in the horror community. Even those who cannot stomach Argento’s other films, such as Opera or Deep Red, will tell you that Suspiria is a masterpiece of film. Argento doesn’t just slap blood on an actress and call it a film, he creates art. His use of color and contrast, mixed with an unsettling plot, creates an atmosphere that is so beautiful to watch that you almost don’t even flinch at the gaping hole in the characters chest and the knife piercing through her heart.
Suspiria is one of my most anticipated films of 2018. I have forced myself to watch each trailer four, five, even six times each because, upon first watch, I find myself instantly disappointed that it isn’t Argento’s Suspiria. I have to remind myself that there is a different director, a different writer and that it is, ultimately, a different film. I think my biggest issue is that I don’t see much of Argento’s original film in the trailers, which I think is mostly because of the lack of color. It seems that this director has gone in the complete opposite direction and made everything as bland looking as possible.
That all being said, I am excited to see more witchcraft in this new trailer. Special effects today can certainly show us more than the shadows and technicolor blurs the 1977 film gave us. The trailer also sets an uneasy tone, which is important for the story to come across the way Argento intended.
I’m expecting a nice, high anxiety, slow burn film with gallons upon gallons of blood. After all, what is Suspiria without blood? Or a room filled with barbed wire?
George Heftler (Staff Writer): This movie is going to be awesome. It’s the perfect way to do a remake. Take the spirit, put your own twist on it. But let’s talk about this bizarre conspiracy that I stumbled upon from watching the trailer.
Lutz Ebersdorf. Supposedly playing Dr. Jozef Klemperer, he’s the 4th billed actor, even above Chloe Grace Moretz. “Who the heck is that”, you may ask. I asked the same. So I went on IMDB. Suspiria is his only credit. There’s a single photo of him on the page, and it doesn’t really look like him in the trailer. I moved onto his bio — co-founded a radical experimental theatre group named Piefke Versus (which is its own rabbit hole) and created several “lost short art films” (how convenient). Oh, and look, he wrote this himself.
So I went back and watched the trailer again. “huh,” I thought. “He kind of sounds like Tilda.” And there’s that shot of him walking up to look at a missing poster. “Huh,” I thought. “He kind of looks like Tilda.” I did a little research, and apparently, there were reports that Tilda was in old age makeup on set and playing Klemperer from a while ago. Luca Guadagnino has come out and denied it, gotten agents to deny it, created this IMDB page, and taken plenty of steps to cover it up. But I’m on to you, Luca.
My point is, if this crazy director has put this much effort into a weird cover-up to let Tilda Swinton play a second role, imagine how much effort he put into the actual movie! Can’t wait to see it.
