Suspiria (2018)

Suspiria: Directed by Luca Guadagnino. With Chloë Grace Moretz, Tilda Swinton, Doris Hick, Malgorzata Bela. A darkness swirls at the center of a world-renowned dance company, one that will engulf the artistic director, an ambitious young dancer, and a grieving psychotherapist. Some will succumb to the nightmare. Others will finally wake up.

“An admirer of the classic Dario Argento film, director Luca Guadagnino, fresh off the major success of u0026quot;Call Me By Your Nameu0026quot;, elected to foolishly remake the movie, throwing out all that made the original great. No more fabulous Technicolor experiments in color, no pulsating score in the vein of Goblin, but instead a stupid decision to retain Argento and Daria Nicolodiu0026#39;s 3 Mothers supernatural story, the weakest element of the show.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI was a huge fan of Argentou0026#39;s u0026quot;animalu0026quot; titled thrillers Bird, Cat and Flies, and even owned a 16mm u0026#39;Scope print of Four Flies on Grey Velvet back in my movie buff days of the u0026#39;70s. But I never got into his later supernatural horror shows, while admiring Suspiria for its technical brilliance.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eNow remakes are problematic in the first place, and just copying or aping an original like Gus Van Sant did with u0026quot;Psychou0026quot; is an exercise in futility. But I did enjoy both the original u0026quot;The Initiation of Sarahu0026quot; and its fine TV remake. These are traditional horror films in the same genre as u0026quot;Suspiriau0026quot;, set in a female world.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eA pornographer would have taken this remake opportunity (called porn-parody in the Adult biz) and used it perhaps for a Sweetheart Video of lesbian porn, with the top young and old actresses having romantic liaisons. u0026quot;Confessions of a Sinful Nunu0026quot; is a recent example from Sweetheart of this approach in a non-supernatural nunsploitation vein.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBut Luca opted instead for the sadistic brand of horror porn, meat hooks and all, with plenty of gore and unpleasantness rather than erotic entertainment. His use of urination is yet another example of rejecting sex in favor of other staples of pornography (softcore division). And his casting of several of Europeu0026#39;s best actresses of recent decades goes for naught: Tilda Swinton quite professional in a lousy, paper-thin role; Angela Winkler solid but hardly up to her great work for German directors; Sophie Testud lost in the shuffle along with the fabulous Renee Soutendijk, and only Ingrid Caven allowed one scene of panache near the end. Bringing back Jessica Harper was a good idea, and her scene has some power.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe many dimly-lit scenes play poorly on the home screen, evidently u0026quot;artisticu0026quot; for theatrical runs, of which the movie was one big flop at the boxoffice. The prologue staring Chloe Grace Moretz is terrible: poorly edited, uninvolving and utterly failing to engage the viewer in the story, just a waste of time and footage.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eJust when I had gained an interest in a relatively new director thanks to his sensitive gay-themed u0026quot;Call Meu0026quot; movie, the guyu0026#39;s feet of clay were revealed here -just another delusional hack.”