Suspiria 1977 Horror Movie Review

Suzy (Jessica Harper) is enrolled in an elite ballet school in London and finds her surroundings and other classmates a bit strange. On the night of her arrival, a gruesome murder takes place (one she doesn’t see). A former student (one who knew to much) was stabbed and found hanged in a local dorm. After being murdered, she’s thrown through a stained glass window and is hung by a cord. The stained glass window falls from the ceiling and kills a woman below leaving her impaled with a large chunk of glass in her face. This opening scene is grisly and sets the pace for the rest of the film.



The following morning Suzy arrives at the school and settles in. During her first class, she faints and falls to the floor. The local doctor puts her on a strict diet and tells her to take it easy. Over the next couple of days, a classmate comes to suspect something evil is happening within the walls of the school. Suzy then comes to realize that her strict diet comes with a dash of poisoning or sedatives and dumps the food when they bring it. This of course is after her talkative classmate mysteriously disappears.



Suzy calls a Doctor (a friend of the now missing classmate) in hopes of finding out more about her friend. During her talk with him, the subject of witches and witchcraft comes up. She comes to find out that there was indeed a time when witches practiced magic and one witch in particular, The Black Queen, was the reining supreme witch.



Ive read a lot about this movie. Surfing from one horror site to the next, this is a popular movie among horror freaks. So when I saw it at the video store, I got it, and was severely disappointed. Dario Argento is an awesome director, and this was a good film, but it was a lot less than I expected. The opening murder scene was awesome, although I had no clue what was going on. Then the movie was really dumb for a long time. Finally, at the end it got good again. I like how the Black Queen was like “meet the undead” or whatever. It was kool. But it was extremely boring the whole time in the middle.