Jessica Harper is the waif Susy Banyon, newly arrived in Germany from the United States. A handy voiceover man tells us that she decided to come to the very exclusive and internationally renowned dance academy to further perfect her skills. She departs from the airport into a thunderous rainstorm pelting down around her as she struggles to hail a taxi. When she eventually does and makes her way to the academy, she witnesses a girl running away from the place in terror, and an angry voice on the intercom outside tells her to go away. As Susy goes back into town to find a hotel, we follow the fleeing girl as she goes to see a friend. The friend offers her a place to stay for the night, but it does them no good as a mysterious stranger with very hairy arms causes kills them elaborately. The next day Susy arrives at the school and is met by instructor Miss Tanner and owner Madame Blanc, an interesting pair to say the least. After some socialising, befriending fellow student Sara, Susy is asked to stay with one of the other students in town as her room isn’t ready, yet Madame Blanc becomes awfully touchy when Susy then prefers to stay there then move into the room when it is ready. Susy is bothered about the night she saw the girl running away, something she was saying but only the words “secret” and “iris” being identifiable.

On her way to a lesson, an encounter with one of the cleaning staff renders Susy extremely disorientated, and she subsequently faints melodramatically during her lesson. Awaking in her room at the academy, which she has mysteriously been totally moved into, a doctor puts her on a restricted diet and prescribes a glass of red wine with every meal. Suddenly and inexplicably maggots start to fall from the ceiling of the dormitory floor, but they appear to be merely the result of a mix-up with the storage of some food, though it was still seemed like a heck of a lot of maggots. A temporary dormitory is set up downstairs, and in the middle of the night a figure appears and goes to sleep. Sara and Susy listen to the odd snoring emanating from the mysterious figure, Sara claims that it is the directress, and seems strangely excited and scared about her being there. The next day, Miss Tanner denies the directress was ever there, saying she was away on trip. The strangeness continues as the blind pianist who worked at the academy is dismissed after his seeing-eye dog attacked the young boy who lives there, and that night Sara sits with a groggy Susy, as they realise that the teachers do not seem to be leaving the school every night like it was believed, but are in fact going somewhere inside. Sara takes notes as she listens to the teachers’ footsteps, attempting to find out where they’re going. Later that night, the blind pianist is walking home across a square when his dog goes crazy, barking wildly before turning on his master and ripping his throat to shreds. As Sara gets more suspicious and nosy, she is attacked and killed in the middle of the night as Susy sleeps, unable to be awoken. The next day her things are gone and Susy is convinced to continue investigating whatever is going on in the academy.

I can’t say for sure if I just made this film sound incredibly boring or not, but the story really isn’t important, it’s the style with which Argento carries this film through to its extremely silly ending which has caused all the fuss. The plot really isn’t up to much, and the acting is pretty wooden except for sudden injections of melodrama, but really the characters are merely props (oops, getting pretentious right there, sorry), part of the set which provide the backdrop for Argento’s keen sense of atmosphere, and his excellent use of light, colour, and soundtrack. Its odd, the film throws us a red herring in the form of two rather violent deaths early on, what this film is really all about is atmosphere, possibly to the cost of everything else.

It was my intention to try and show, through the screencaptures, how Argento used colour and light to create an extremely distinctive look and feel. The interiors of the academy are vibrant, from the dark blue of the foyer, to the deep red (no pun intended) of the corridors – it gives it all an unreal appearance, like some dreamlike fantasy. A long shot panning the interior of an apartment building’s lobby early on showed a wonderfully brightly coloured glass ceiling, you just know someone is going to go through it later. Argento also used typically unrealistic but very striking red for the blood, whether intentional or not it adds more splashes of colour, dripping onto plain-coloured floors so as to show up better. His use of lighting in the night scenes is excellent too, a powerful red during the dormitory scene as the directress snores ominously, the green as Sara is attacked, all adding a strange dreamlike quality. The result is an eerie, yet bright and extremely striking film, quite unlike anything else I’ve ever seen.

That is only half of the story however, as we also have the excellent score by rock band Goblin. A favourite of Argento’s for a number of his most successful movies, it is said by many that this is the best the ever produced, and it is used excellently during the film. Really, there are only two themes, one is the eerie ‘Suspiria theme’, and the other is the ‘something really spooky and scary is about to happen theme’. Through the repetitious use of these two themes in certain situations, the atmosphere is shaped by them, and bringing the viewer to expect something to happen when one of the themes starts. When the ‘something really spooky and scary is about to happen theme’ is used early on as the escaping girl suspects something is wrong, before being snatched through her window and murdered, we automatically expect similarly scary and violent moments to be waiting just around the corner – whether they have it or not isn’t important, the mood is brilliantly set through the use of a simple piece of music. The haunting score is what really made the movie for me, and one has to wonder how many films this style could have influenced.

Suspiria represents an exercise in atmosphere, creating a tense and haunting feeling of dread excellently. However the tagline used for this film – “The Only Thing More Terrifying Than The Last 12 Minutes Of This Film Are The First 92”, despite getting the length of the film wrong, was right - Suspiria falls flat on its face when it reaches its climax, suddenly having nowhere to go and no idea how to end. This is why despite all the mood, atmosphere, and pretty colours, Tenebrae is still my favourite Argento movie for being an overall more consistent film, but Supiria provided so much entertainment, and was so different from any other film I’ve seen in its genre, it still holds a special place as a superbly made horror. Another must see for horror fans, or anybody interested in how to create a taut and effective atmosphere.