Suspiria (1977)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Suzy Bannion	Jessica Harper
Sarah	Stefania Casini
Daniel	Flavio Bucci
Mark	Miguel Bosè
Miss Tanner	Alida Valli
Madame Blanc	Joan Bennett	½
Dr. Frank Mandel	Udo Kier

Review

Although Dario Argento was a master of compositions, lighting and colour contrasts, even his most renowned films appear dated and ineffective today, including his perhaps most hailed, Suspiria from 1977. With its heavy imagery and bold thematics (witchcraft and the occult), Argento wanted to aim high and hit hard, but the film is so stylized and constructed, with its meticulous compositions and fairytalish build-up, that it seems almost parodic. And so when the child-like protagonist ultimately finds herself up against the larger-than-life antagonist, the film has distanced itself so far from our reality that there's little left in terms of recognition. We don't feel we're watching a horror movie as much as a gaudy, macabre painting. The bad acting and one-dimensional characters don't help much either. This is token horror at (almost) its worst. The musical score, although a bit too repetitive, is easily the film's most redeeming quality.