The 1977 Original: A Technicolor Fever Dream
Dario Argento's 1977 Suspiria is less a story and more a full-sensory assault. From the opening frames, it plunges the viewer into a world that feels completely detached from reality. Argento, a master of the Italian horror subgenre known as Giallo, famously
used a rare, vibrant Technicolor process to drench the screen in saturated primary colors, especially a deep, menacing red. The effect is painterly and entirely unnatural; the film looks the way a Grimm's fairy tale feels—beautiful, magical, and secretly vicious. The plot is simple: an American ballet student, Suzy Bannion, arrives at a German dance academy run by witches. But logic and narrative coherence are secondary to the atmosphere. The architecture is a disorienting mix of Art Deco grandeur and geometric impossibilities. The violence is operatic and shockingly graphic, yet so stylized it becomes darkly beautiful. It’s a film that aims to overwhelm you with its dreamlike, or rather nightmarish, aesthetic, creating an experience that is thrilling, terrifying, and visually unforgettable.
The 2018 'Homage': A Cold War Nightmare
Director Luca Guadagnino described his 2018 version not as a remake, but as an "homage" to the feeling Argento’s film gave him. He keeps the basic premise but discards nearly everything else. Gone are the psychedelic colors, replaced with a palette of muted greys, browns, and the bleak, brutalist architecture of 1977 Berlin during the "German Autumn." This Suspiria is deliberately, oppressively grim. It grounds its horror in a specific historical moment, weaving in the story of the Baader-Meinhof Group and a nation grappling with post-WWII guilt. The narrative is dense, sprawling to over two and a half hours to explore themes of motherhood, abuse of power, and generational trauma. This is a cerebral, methodical film that prioritizes psychological dread over supernatural shock. It doesn’t want to dazzle you with color; it wants to immerse you in a cold, decaying world where dark forces operate just beneath a veneer of normalcy.
A Tale of Two Soundtracks
The auditory experience of each film is as distinct as the visual one. The original features a legendary, panic-inducing score by the Italian prog-rock band Goblin. Argento famously blasted the soundtrack on set to keep his actors on edge. The music is a chaotic symphony of whispers, screeching synths, and relentless percussion that becomes a character in itself, driving the film's frantic, terrifying energy. For the 2018 version, Guadagnino enlisted Radiohead's Thom Yorke, who deliberately avoided Goblin's style. Yorke’s score is melancholic, mournful, and unsettling. It’s built on haunting piano melodies, anxious synth pulses, and Yorke's signature falsetto. While Goblin’s music attacks you, Yorke’s seeps into you, creating a persistent feeling of sorrow and unease that perfectly complements the film's bleak tone.
Two Kinds of Terror
Ultimately, the two films offer fundamentally different types of horror. Argento’s is about the shock of the unreal. The murders are extravagant, bloody set pieces designed to be as visually stunning as they are gruesome. It’s a Giallo film at heart, transitioning into supernatural horror, focusing on mystery and spectacular violence. Guadagnino, on the other hand, delivers a masterclass in body horror. His film's terror is visceral and somatic. In one infamous scene, a dancer's movements in one room magically contort and break another dancer's body in a different room. The horror isn't just seen; it's felt in your own bones and stomach. One film is a roller coaster through a haunted art installation; the other is a slow, methodical dissection of the human body and spirit.
