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When compiling the list of twelve films for this project, I hesitated to include anything from my sizable horror collection. First of all, horror films are generally not a good pick for a cheery, Christmas-y list of movies. I’m a relatively traditional guy when it comes to Christmas (in that I like to put up a tree with lights and have people give me things), and the last thing I want is to come off like the fat guy at the party in the Nightwing tee shirt who comes up to you and just can’t stop talking about Suspiria. “And then, the chick totally comes busting through the stained glass, all fucked up and shit, man, wow, yeah!” And then I go home, alone, falling asleep cuddling my twelve-inch Leatherface doll and sniffling… well, hypothetically, anyway, that’s what I might do. I guess.

Anyway, despite my best efforts to wedge some other, more festive movie into its place, Suspiria would not be denied, just beating out the necrophiliac comedy Cemetery Man for the bottom spot on the list. So, without further ado, here’s what I love about it.

What Came Before: Dario Argento is, of course, bugfuck insane. He’s on my short list of filmmakers I find genuinely scary; not in the sense that I think he’s dangerously insane (although I actually do think that), but he’s also just a scary-looking dude. I would not want to meet him in the proverbial dark alley, or even in a cozy bar where I can’t clearly see the fire exit. He is a frightening, brilliant Crypt Keeper of a man, and the fact that Asia Argento came from his genetic material makes me fear for her — much in the same “genetic time bomb” way I fear for Liv Tyler. One day, I fear, she’s going to exfoliate one too many times and violently disintegrate like that Nazi at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Argento is also, in my limited experience, a colossally inconstant filmmaker. For every iconic film in his filmography, he’s made three that are pretty much unwatchable. Even his good films are uneven in places. Inferno features an absolutely spectacular underwater sequence, but if anyone has a sensible explanation for the killer hot-dog guy in the third reel, I’d like to hear it. Tenebre has an ending that’s as gonzo and shocking as any you could ask for Argento, but it’s mostly shocking because the ninety minutes preceding it are, for the most part, boring as fuck. And I won’t even talk about Sleepless, which sports one gorgeous five-minute tracking shot sandwiched between two hours of Max Von Sydow blathering nursery rhymes to himself. In my book, horror movies are at their best when they make you feel a little insane, but Sleepless goes about it in entirely the wrong fashion.

With Suspiria, however, Argento knocks it right out of the park. It’s garish, moody, and utterly surreal, shoving you into a closet full of Argento’s ruthless visions and deftly locking the door behind you. It doesn’t make an ounce of rational sense, if you take time to think about it, but Argento doesn’t give you that time — Suspiria has the insidious, inescapable quality of nightmare, and, once you’ve given yourself over to it, it’s not about to let you go.

Why It’s Number Twelve: I watch a lot of horror movies, and, like any fan with too much damn time on his hands, I’ve developed a lengthy list of gripes about the genre. Most of the items on the list are pretty standard: why did that dumb bitch run up the stairs? How can the insane psycho slasher outrun a frantically running teenager while moving at a leisurely stroll? Can we, just once, have a Numbnuts Sheriff who does believe The Kids? Why is Wes Craven still allowed to direct a motion picture? And so on. Near the top of this list is the blatant telegraphing of “jump” shots, where the audience suddenly sees an angle on the window, or the door, or the next room, and it’s clear that something’s about to jump out and startle the viewer — usually the cat, or perhaps someone’s drunken Uncle Freddy. For whatever reason, I learned to spot these shots early on in my horror fandom, and therefore rarely found myself startled. Similarly, if the music takes a dip into silence, or the guy with the backward baseball cap is shoving his hand in the air duct again, you know the shit’s about to hit the fan. Why have the nerve to act surprised? All the “stinger” music in the world isn’t going to make a hackneyed moment exciting. (If only Steve Miner could learn this. But I disgress.)

Whenever I’d see a scene like this, I’d concoct wild fantasies of making my own horror film, one in which every scene was that “telegraphed” shot that made you feel as if something was about to jump out. The camera would peer into darkened doorways, down shadowed halls, through windows into a foggy night, and the audience would just get more and more ramped up, never quite knowing why. Imagine my glee (and annoyance) when Suspiria did this very thing. Not every shot is fraught with tension, but a generous number of them are, and that’s pure porn to a guy like me. What makes it even better is that Suspiria’s startling moments aren’t telegraphed — or, if they are, the timing is off by just enough make me jump.

There’s more, much more; I could go on all day with trivia about Suspiria, and the dozens of moments I adore. But remember that bit from the beginning of this article, about the fat guy in the Nightwing tee shirt, blathering endlessly about Suspiria? Yeah. I put that in there for a reason.

Suspiria is far from perfect — the special effects don’t hold up all that well, and it’s clear that Argento didn’t have much of a budget. But it’s a vibrant, ghoulish, carnival ride of a film, and one I like to revisit often. I try not to think about the remake, which, if not already in production, is certainly inevitable. I’ll think, instead, of the fact that the third film seems to be well underway, which makes me both hopeful and afraid — I did, after all, sit through Inferno.

Favorite Moment: My favorite moment from this movie actually has relatively little to do with the movie itself. I watched this film with the esteemed Reverend Matt, one windy night a few years ago. He had recently exposed me to the glories of the Japanese Ringu, before its inevitable bastardization by the American film studios, and I wanted to reciprocate by showing him Suspiria. He watched most of the movie in silence, leaving me wondering if perhaps I’d miscalculated somehow, and he didn’t find it appealing. Finally, about an hour in, he said: “Oh, I get it. I understand now. This film is a nightmare.”

That warmed my heart, of course, but the real topper came at the finale, when, as the protagonist revealed the final secret of the movie, the Reverend was heard to say, without rancor: “I wish I was dead.”

Not quite as good as the time the Reverend pulled a weapon on me after watching Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, but that’s another story.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 12th, 2006 at 11:41 pm and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.