A remake can be a very tricky place creatively. In my opinion, a remake is only really needed if the original property had the potential to be something great yet fell short when finished. The perfect remake goes its own path yet never truly lets go of the foundation the original built. If the remake shows no resemblance of the original, why even associate it with the original? Why not just make an entirely new film? It’s questions like these that get thrown around a lot when discussing the necessity of remakes, especially in the context of classics.
Most of the time, the usual suspects are brought up: John Carpenter’s “The Thing” is considered to be THE quintessential remake while films like Gus Van Sant’s “Psycho” (and even the 2011 “The Thing”) show the problems with touching films that have no business being remade. There are good examples on both sides but, on rare occasions, there are remakes that baffle even the strongest of remake optimists. These are the type of remakes that raise the most eyebrows and, in 2018, Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria,” a remake of Dario Argento’s 1977 horror classic, was the most eye-catching of them all. Barely a year after his critically-acclaimed film “Call Me by Your Name” comes a remake of an Italian gem that has only gotten more and more notorious with each new piece of information as we’ve gotten closer to its release date. As a fan of horror (and the original film), I jumped headfirst into the madness to see where Luca’s remake sits on the scale.
At face value, the remake has changed very little of the original’s plot. Dakota Johnson stars as Susie Bannion, an American girl who has traveled to Germany in the hopes that she’ll be able to study at a prodigious dance school. At her audition, she impresses every instructor in attendance, even Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton) who was so entranced by the audition that she stopped her class just to watch Susie. Susie gets accepted immediately, becoming friends with fellow student Sara (Mia Goth) and even getting the lead role in the next dance production. Everything seems perfect until it is discovered that several people have gotten hurt or missing in connection to the dance school. To make matters worse, Madame Blanc takes an eerily tight grip on Susie, making it clear that she’s been chosen for something that fans of the original “Suspiria” might know all too well.
As I previously mentioned, the skeleton of the remake is very much the original Argento film. However, if you dig deep, you’ll find that the film goes so far in the other direction at times that it can be hardly recognizable as a “Suspiria” remake. One of the biggest changes is the setting as it pushes heavily on Cold War Berlin, deciding to create very bleak, cold visuals in contrast with the 1977 film’s vibrant, odd color palette. It’s almost as if Guadagnino made it a personal challenge to see if he could make a remake of one of the most beautiful horror films still interesting without heavily relying on the original’s bright colors and bizarre lighting. Surprisingly, he still does because the film perfectly captures the late 70’s look with its camerawork, editing, and locations that are beautiful even in a drab Berlin. This visual shift leads to a film that feels interesting, authentic, and beautiful without ever having to rely on the original’s visual choices.
Speaking of a shift, the film’s characters feel very different as well. While some start out feeling like the original ensemble, the remake decided to use its extra run-time to establish more of the personalities of the main characters in a way that makes them feel deeper and unique to the remake's interpretation. Dakota Johnson's approach to Susie Bannion is very different from Jessica Harper's performance in the 1977 original, Mia Goth's Sara is more relatable as she slowly loses it the deeper she investigates into the dance school, and even Tilda Swinton's Madame Blanc gets a massive amount of time onscreen, building her place in the dance school as the film establishes the school's hierarchy and history. That doesn't even get into Dr. Josef Klemperer, a completely original character to the remake that has his own motivations as well as a different importance to the plot since most of the exposition and world-building is put on his storyline. In all honesty, I personally really enjoy this change to the characters because this gives the audience more fleshed-out characters to follow and care about, especially in comparison to the original which, besides Jessica Harper, didn’t have many characters to connect with.
This also bleeds into the performances. The remake definitely has the better cast in comparison to the original, giving us killer performances from pretty much every major character. Dakota Johnson shines as Susie Bannion, giving us a performance that twists her usual sweet, mousy demeanor into something that is more dedicated and nuanced that I ever thought I’d give her credit for. Mia Goth is great, Chloë Grace Moretz commits to the small amount of screentime she has, and Tilda Swinton is so good that she plays three different characters flawlessly. Swinton loses herself in each role, making me even forget that one of those characters is an elderly, male professor. She is but one aspect of the remake that shows Guadagnino was more interested in crafting compelling performances than easy moments of nostalgia.
Now with the discussion of the ensemble out of the way, it’s time for the discussion about possibly the most divisive part of the remake: its approach to horror. Guadagnino doesn’t have a background in horror at all so it’s interesting to see his take on a remake of a film that is directed by one of the best Italian horror directors of all time. His answer: fully commit to the abstract and the graphic violence. The film’s scares have more in common with Ari Aster’s “Hereditary” rather than “The Conjuring” or “Insidious,” creating a film that prefers long shots of people slowing losing control rather than trying to shove jumpscares into every horror set piece. Granted, this does lead to moments in “Suspiria” where the film creates images that are striking and upsetting but not necessarily scary. That definitely hurts the overall experience but not to the point where the film’s scares are unenjoyable. In fact, it’s a creative choice I totally understand and accept in comparison to the other problems I have with the film.
The smallest issue I have with the film is the film’s pacing. The film is split into six acts and an epilogue which really only drags early on in the film, especially when Susie is still getting accustomed to the dance school. The biggest issues I have with the film, however, are with the use of CGI blood and Thom Yorke’s score. While I love the mix of practical and visual effects throughout the film (especially during the film’s first death scene), the film decides to rely a little too heavily on CGI blood when nearing the finale, leading to graphic moments that lose a bit of an immersive quality due to that decision.
Sadly, the biggest letdown of the film is Thom Yorke’s score for the film. Yorke creates a score that is, at best, a mix of haunting yet comforting tracks that really capture being in a posh dance school that is built on camaraderie and dark secrets. I’d say “at best” because there’s only a few tracks that perfectly capture what the film is going for. The rest of the score works well but it mostly just sits in the background a little too well to the point where you even forget that something is playing. It pains me to say that because it’s pretty clear that Thom Yorke put effort into the overall score. That being said though, when one track from Goblin’s score to the 1977 film trumps pretty much every one of the remake’s tracks, I think that says it all.
As I go over the film in my head,I have come to the conclusion that this is a horror film that not everyone will enjoy. This film feels like the easiest target for people to say it’s “pretentious” or “convoluted” which honestly doesn’t ring true to me. In fact, it feels like a situation where Luca Guadagnino was able to freely create in the dark, weird spectrum of horror after being tied to dramas these last few years. While the remake feels like a completely different beast at times, I felt that it honored Argento’s classic and its inspirations without ever becoming a shot-for-shot mistake. 2018’s “Suspiria” even uses its additional hour to explore all the avenues the original couldn't, giving us a film that seems too dense and complicated initially but is easy enough to digest once the film gets to the its bombastic finale. In the end, while the film has its flaws, it certainly does enough to be worthy of the original's name and cult classic status.