Perhaps for some Dario Argento fans, it will be enough to see Jessica Harper running around dance studio halls beaming with blue and red colors that bounce off the walls. It may also be enough to suggest a witches' coven resides somewhere in this ballet school. Other than the elaborate production design and an obtrusive, loud though sometimes compelling music score, "Suspiria" seems to portend something evil throughout yet it only really picks up steam in the last ten minutes.
Harper is Suzy, a new student at a German ballet school filled with less than savory characters running it. Joan Bennett, in her last role, is presumably the head of the school and there are odd ducks like the stern ballet teacher; the tall assistant server with false teeth due to gingivitis; a cook who must know something about the school as she holds a glinting knife in one scene; a blind pianist with a seeing-eye dog who is fired, and several female ballet dancers who prance across the screen though we never get to know them. We get an early scene of a student stabbed to death and then hung from the ceiling after seeing a black cat's eyes outside her room window. Another student fearing for her life (Stefania Casini), while warning Suzy that something weird is happening at the academy, is later seen falling into a bed of razor wire! Meanwhile, Suzy gets weak and barely dances in this movie, and she keeps falling asleep after drinking wine and sporadically eating her dinner meals. She also confronts a bat and beats it to death. Oh, I can't omit a man whose throat is ripped apart by a dog. I am sorry but these older women at the colony are allegedly witches? They summon a creature that just stabs people with a knife? They summon a dog to eat its owner? Yet the witches supposedly want wealth and power and to achieve it, they kill people. I guess I can sort of see it.
"Suspiria" maintains some level of interest because you wonder what sort of "Omen"-like murder will occur next. You also wonder how many more incoming and random bursts of bright red, green and blue colors you will see in every frame. Only Jessica Harper is wasted in a role that doesn't ask for much except to react to goings-on in the most cursory manner imaginable. The music score by Goblin (an Italian progressive rock band) is heightened throughout the film, right from the opening scene, when in fact underscoring without overstating would've benefitted the film's power. "Suspiria" has a thrilling conclusion, looks and feels urgent in its tense depiction of murderous horrors, but there is not much else here to recall from a narrative standpoint. Once it ends, you'll wonder why the apathetic Suzy didn't just walk out of that school sooner.
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