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DARIO ARGENTO 's beste film!
Hoe mooi kan horror zijn?
SUSPIRIA
Met deze film bewijst
Dario Argento dat horror ook sprookjesachtig mooi kan zijn, de combinatie van felle kleuren voornamelijk rood en blauw geven de film een cartoon'eske uitstraling. Dit in combinatie met een aantal aloude truukjes zoals bijvoorbeeld het hoog ophangen van de deurkruk geeft de kijker het gevoel minuscuul te zijn
Jessica Harper plays an American who travels to Germany to further her studies in dance. Arriving at the school late at night in driving rain, she sees a girl leave and run into the storm in a clearly distressed state. What happens next - and I don't make the comparison lightly - is a murder sequence that for intensity, shock value and sheer directorial flair ranks alongside Alfred
Hitchcock's infamous shower scene in
PSYCHO. It's quite possibly a homage to Hitchcock, but with its baroque sets, graphic gore and brilliantly chaotic musical accompaniment by the Gothic rock group
Goblin, this stunning sequence remains very much
Argento's own.
SUSPIRIA's narrative is akin to a dreamlike fairy tale, complete with mad dogs, blind pianists, sleeping potions, a mysterious rain of maggots and an invisible witch whose influence permeates everything. It all begins when ballerina Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper) arrives for a stay at the famous Tanz Akademie of Dance in Freiburg, West Germany. Unfortunately for her, the Akademie turns out to have been founded by one of the Three Mothers, immortal female monsters (who also pop up in
Argento's film
INFERNO) and Suzy is led deeper and deeper into a maelstrom of potentially deadly secrets.
Een ander sterk punt van de film is de soundtrack: de muziek van Goblin is ongeevenaard; luid, spooky en het fluisterende gezang doet ECHT je nekharen rijzen!
The movie's secret strength, however, is its amazing electronic score, put together by
Argento himself in collaboration with the now-defunct band
Goblin. With its relentless combination of bass, drums and zither, wind-like gusts of moaning and screaming, childlike chanting and whispered cries of "Witch!" it may be one of the weirdest -- not to mention intermittently one of the loudest -- soundtracks ever composed. Simply by playing this music in the background,
Argento is able to invest even the least "scary" images -- such as the shadow of a sleeping body behind a hung-up sheet -- with suspense so intense it seems to slow the entire film to a crawl.
Argento delights in many rare techniques, such as a floating camera and two-color lighting. The first death scene is a classic setpiece and is guaranteed to send a chill up your spine. Watch it in the dark around 2:00 AM, alone, and with the lights out to maximize the eerie effectiveness of the movie. A classic, though, even better than most of
Hitchcock's work (to which this is often compared)... the entire reason
Argento ever achieved any critical fame. Now when the "Scream" guy calls you up and asks you for a scary movie, you'll know exactly what to say.
Kortom: Een horrorfilm kan dus ook ontzettend mooi zijn dat bewijst Argento hier met deze horror klassieker. Anders dan z'n landgenoot en collega lucio Fulci die een patent op 'gore' blijkt te hebben, is dit een horrorfilm die het meer van de stijl moet hebben dwz spanning, mooi kleurgebruik en flitsend camerawerk. Gaat dit zien!
trivia Na het zien van deze film besloot Bridget Fonda te gaan acteren.
IMDB
DVD REVIEW (limited edition)
DVD RELEASES
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