I should have seen this coming. Suspiria clocks in at a “brisk” 2 and a half hours. It stars a character playing dual gender roles; it’s directed by a guy who created a VERY artistic but beautiful love story. And it’s a remake of a film most consider a classic in the genre. Suspiria was ripe for a colossal cluster f*ck, which is exactly what this movie is. When I think about some of the worst films I’ve seen, Suspiria will be on the short list.
A movie this bad should be spoiled so you don’t see it, so [SPOILER WARNING] for a god awful film, but whatever. Psychiatrist Josef Klemperer (Tilda Swinton) starts realizing that his patient Patricia (Chloe Grace Moretz) might not be crazy, and that a coven of witches might be running a dance studio in Germany in the 1970s. At the same time, Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson) from Ohio tries out and makes the company, run recently by Madame Blanc (also Swinton). Patricia used to be the head dancer, and Blanc sees something in Bannion to make her the lead dancer for their last performance a few nights down the road.
What helps make a movie spectacularly bad is you can see the potential in the pieces that were assembled. Luca Guadagnino, the director, had just made the perceptive and sweet Call Me By Your Name, which means he seems perfect to inject some humanity into this crazy story. Tilda Swinton can’t help but be decent, even in this garbage, playing 2 characters, one super creepy and one completely the opposite, but more weird. Dakota Johnson is perfectly at home in thrillers, both good and bad. And the story is famous for its shocking horror and twisted colorful imagery, something that should be even easier to cook up today. With a recipe like that, this movie should be at least fun as hell to watch, even if it’s dark.
Instead, we get a LONG, LOOOONNNNNGGGG slog of a film that immediately announces it will be 6 parts, meaning if you’re not into this film by part 2 (you won’t be), then you have a terrible wait for this film to be over. The movie let’s the witch thing slip immediately, ruining a potential plot twist. It’s attempts to tie in hijackings of a Berlin airplane as part of a metaphor for the dance academy are confusing at the start, and just go away by the end of the movie. Although there are a few scares, this movie is RARELY scary at all, using violins, and Dakota Johnson and Tilda Swinton staring at the camera in creepy ways. Guadagnino was SO good at creating grounded real characters in his previous films, but Suspiria only boasts one character you feel anything for, the doctor, and that storyline is so ham fisted into the main narrative you really don’t feel that much anyways. UGH! Now, all of this could have been saved: the movie is building up to this crazy third act that you know is coming, probably involving some ritual of some kind. 2018’s version of this ritual, sad to say, is simply just grotesque, not in any way scary, and simply an exercise in excess that means NOTHING. ZERO. ZILCH. DOODY. You know your movie might be bad if you’re going for a serious, terrifying vibe and most of your movie watchers are just laughing hysterically at what you’re presenting onscreen. At this point, I was ready to walk out were it not for an epilogue, as if this movie needed to be longer.
By the end of Suspiria, you’ll feel dirty, disgusted, and bored, all in the worst way possible. It is an example of when a creative man is bound by nothing, and surrounded by “Yes Men,” delivering something that only the strange few will enjoy for some reason. Maybe they like seeing Tilda Swinton with a penis? It’s hard to tell who will actually like this movie.