Suspiria
Short description
Suspiria is a 1977 Italian horror film directed by Dario Argento, who wrote the screenplay with Daria Nicolodi. Jessica Harper plays Suzy Bannion, an American dancer who arrives in Germany to enrol at a prestigious ballet academy. From her first night, when a fleeing student is turned away and then murdered elsewhere, the school proves unsettling: strict teachers, strange noises after dark, and a general atmosphere of threat. Suzy begins to probe what is happening behind the academy's respectable facade.
The film is the fifth of the seventeen Argento has directed and followed Deep Red in 1975, with Inferno arriving in 1980. Alongside Harper, the cast includes Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosé, Barbara Magnolfi and Susanna Javicoli, with thirty-three performers credited. Claudio Argento produced it for Seda Spettacoli in Italy.
On IMDb the film holds 7.3 out of 10 from around 116,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7.5 from roughly 3,300 votes, indicating a widely seen film with a durable reputation among viewers. A critics' rating of 8.5 out of 10 across sixty-four reviews places it higher than those audience scores. It took about three million dollars worldwide at the box office.
What's left behind the scenes
- Initially, the role of Sarah (Suzy Bannion's friend) was intended for Daria Nicolodi, but due to Daria's injury during filming, this plan was not realized.
- Dario Argento's original concept was for the ballet school students to be girls no older than 12 years old. That’s how they were depicted in the original screenplay. However, the studio and executive producer Salvatore Argento (the director’s father) refused to implement this idea, rightly believing that a film based on the demonstration of brutal murders of children would, of course, be banned. Then Dario Argento raised the age of the heroines to 20 years old, which allowed the film to begin production.
- The name of the old woman who played Helena Marcos is not listed in the credits. Jessica Harper claimed that she was a 90-year-old former prostitute whom Dario Argento found on the streets of Rome and invited to his film. Daria Nicolodi provided the voice for this role.
- In the opening episode of the film, the face of Dario Argento can be seen reflected in the glass partition of a taxi. The director himself later claimed that this was intentional, but it is possible that it was simply an excuse to justify a filming mistake.
- During the filming of scenes with worms, rice was used in wide shots, however, real worms are shown in close-ups.
- The role of Suzy Bannion was initially offered to actress Tina Omon, known for her role as Henrietta in Federico Fellini’s 'Fellini's Casanova' (1976). However, due to being heavily booked, she was unable to accept the offer.
- For this film, Dario Argento wrote and recorded, together with the rock band 'Goblin', eerie and heartbreaking music, which he played at full volume on set during filming in order to elicit genuine fear and push the actors to their emotional limits.
- The whispering heard in the film's soundtrack against the bizarre music of 'Goblin' is the voice of the composer and keyboardist.
- The film has a moment where a glass feather breaks off from the ornament. This is a reference to Dario Argento’s directorial film debut – the spaghetti horror film “The Bird with the Crystal Plumage” (1970).
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