Line #24 Film/Suspiria1977


1	[[quoteright:318:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/suspiriaposter_2562.jpg]]
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3	->''"The only thing more terrifying than the last 12 minutes of this film are the first 92."''
4	-->-- '''{{Tagline}} for the US release'''
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6	''Suspiria'' is a classic 1977 Italian horror film directed by Creator/DarioArgento, written by Argento and his frequent collaborator/lover Daria Nicolodi, and partially based on Creator/ThomasDeQuincey's 1845 essay ''Suspiria de Profundis''. The film stars Creator/JessicaHarper, Stefania Casini, Creator/AlidaValli, Creator/UdoKier, and Creator/JoanBennett in her final role.
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8	Suzy Bannion (Harper), an American ballet student, goes to perfect her art at a dance academy in Freiburg, West Germany. On the night of her arrival, however, one of the school's students is brutally murdered. As Suzy adjusts to her new life in school, she's soon overwhelmed by a series of strange and nightmarish events, causing her and fellow student Sara (Casini) to suspect that something very evil is lurking in the dance academy.
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10	Probably the most famous of Argento's films, ''Suspiria'' is widely known for its dazzlingly surreal visuals, evocative soundtrack by ProgressiveRock band Music/{{Goblin}}, and shocking gore. It's the first installment of Argento's ThematicSeries "The Three Mothers," which also includes ''Film/{{Inferno\|1980}}'' (1980) and ''Film/MotherOfTears'' (2007).
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12	Creator/LucaGuadagnino directed a loose [[Film/Suspiria2018 remake]] of the film that was released in 2018, starring Creator/DakotaJohnson and Creator/TildaSwinton, and [[PopStarComposer scored by]] [[Music/{{Radiohead}} Thom Yorke]].
13	----
14	!! "Broken Tropes, Broken Minds":
15	* AbortedArc: Olga (Suzy's would-be roommate) is set up as a supporting character, but she drops out of the plot by the midway mark. It could be said that the same happens to Mark (Suzy's would-be lover), [[spoiler:if it wasn't for the revelation that he is a member of the coven too, which takes this arc to another direction]]. According to Olga's actress, there was a scene showing Olga performing with the Bolshoi when the students are in town, and she believes [[spoiler:the girl is a witch in training]].
16	* AdvertisedExtra: [[spoiler: Despite Creator/UdoKier having a very small role in the film, a number of foreign posters and covers for the film inexplicably bill him higher than the film itself actually does. One poster bills him right behind Harper and Casini, as if he's the male lead, while another bills him fifth, behind Harper, Casini, Bennett, and Valli, again as though he's the male lead.]]
17	* AllThereInTheManual: The significance of hangings, throat-slittings, the Directoress' distinctive snoring, and [[spoiler:the coven's deaths by asphyxiation]] only make sense if you know that the Directoress is [[spoiler:the Mother of Sighs]]. This is important in the inspiration and the sequels, but makes less sense here. Even the film's title is drawn from the word "suspire", which means to take a deep breath or a sigh.
18	* AlphaBitch: Olga is the richest student at the academy and brags about how Suzy must rent a room from her. Then when Suzy gets sick, she moves all her things out of the apartment and into the school. [[spoiler: Though we later find out that the witches in the school intentionally made Suzy sick in order to move her back from Olga's apartment and into the school to watch her, as she saw Pat Hingle leave before she was murdered, and they want to know what else Suzy knows.]]
19	* AndStarring: With Alida Valli as Miss Tanner, And with Joan Bennett.
20	* AnimalsHateHim: Daniel's guide dog attacks Albert, Madame Blanc's nephew.
21	%%Zero Context Example* AnyoneCanDie: It's an Argento movie. What did you expect?
22	%%Zero Context Example* ArcWords: [[spoiler:"Secret irises."]]
23	%%Zero Context Example* BalletEpisode: For both Creator/DarioArgento and his ''Three Mothers Trilogy''.
24	* BigBad: [[spoiler:Helena Markos, who is]] Mater Suspiriorum, the Mother of Sighs and who remains unseen for most of the film but makes her presence felt with everything that transpiring, being in her name.
25	%%Zero Context Example* {{Bizarrchitecture}}: Understandable, since Argento is a fan of Creator/AlfredHitchcock.
26	* BlindMusician: In one scene, where there's ballet practice, the music is played by Daniel, a blind man with a guide dog.
27	* BoardingSchoolOfHorrors: The dance academy Suzy enrolls in is thoroughly one.
28	* BookcasePassage: [[spoiler:Helena Markos, the Directoress and Mother of Sighs]] is in a hidden room that can be accessed by turning the [[spoiler:blue iris]] on the wall in Madame Blanc's office.
29	* BookEnds: At the start of the film, Suzy enters the academy in pouring rain, witnessing Pat run out, nothing on her person. [[spoiler:At the end of the film, Suzy leaves the academy in pouring rain with nothing on her person (and fortunately for her no one on her trail.)]]
30	* TheBrute: The porter Pavlos is the one who [[spoiler:pursues Suzy before she breaks into Helena Markos's bedroom]].
31	* ByTheLightsOfTheirEyes: When the killer attacks.
32	* ColorWash: A motif in the film. There is a lot of red, green and blue lighting.
33	* CreepyBallet: The ballet institute the heroine starts at turns out to be a front for a coven of witches.
34	* CreepyChild: Albert, the nephew of Miss Tanner. It doesn't help that he's dressed in very outdated children's clothes. [[spoiler:He's also a member of the coven.]]
35	* CruelAndUnusualDeath: The deaths of Pat, her friend, and [[spoiler:Sara]] are examples.
36	** Pat is stabbed multiple times, to the point that her chest is open and her still-beating heart is stabbed. Then she's hung in the lobby of the apartment building.
37	** Her friend meanwhile gets impaled in the debris when Pat's body is smashed through the ceiling glass.
38	** [[spoiler:Sara falls into a pit of razor wire and has her throat slashed as she's made it out]].
39	* CurbStompBattle: The final confrontation with the BigBad is...surprisingly easy. [[spoiler:A flash of lightning reveals Helena Markos's invisibility just long enough for Suzy to know where to stab.]]
40	* DangerouslyGarishEnvironment: This movie and its successor ''Film/Inferno1980'' run on this trope. Both films feature exterior and interior shots illuminated with colorful lights which lends to a dream fever like atmosphere. Pat's RasputinianDeath is perhaps one of the most iconic examples.
41	%%Zero Context Example* TheDarknessGazesBack: The first murder. Eek.
42	* DeathOfAChild: [[spoiler:Albert is killed along with the rest of the coven once Helena Markos dies.]]
43	* DeathTrap: While following the teachers at night, Sara gets chased [[spoiler:by an unseen killer and jumps out of a window into a room full of razor wire.]]
44	* DingDongTheWitchIsDead: Once the BigBad is killed, the threat is neutralized because the other members of the [[spoiler:coven]] are powerless without the leader and die.
45	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Not that all three films aren't extremely weird, but the fact that most of the actual lore is established in ''Film/Inferno1980'' makes ''Suspiria'' a bit of an oddball Three Mothers-wise. Mater Suspiriorum / Helena Markos is never named by her proper title throughout the film, and indeed is the only one of the Mothers referred to by a given name (and also by the title "Black Queen" given to her by Frank Mandel and Prof. Milius, never used again in the series). Nor, in this film, is there any suggestion she was part of a larger cult, other than her own coven of subordinates.
46	* EmpathicEnvironment: The storm at the end mirrors [[spoiler:the destruction of the school]].
47	* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: [[spoiler:Miss Tanner]] is furious about Daniel's dog attacking [[spoiler:Albert]].
48	* EvilOldFolks: Most of the villains of the film are older women. The BigBad is [[spoiler:a centuries-old witch]].
49	* EvilDetectingDog: Done with a twist. [[spoiler:The evil in question manages to possess it into attacking its owner.]] Prior to that is a more straightforward example: [[spoiler:Seeing how Albert was part of the coven, it's likely that the dog recognized him as evil, which is what provoked him to attack.]]
50	* ExactEavesDropping: Suzy sneaks into the coven's inner sanctum at the exact right moment to overhear that [[spoiler:they're beginning a ritual which will kill her]].
51	* ExcusePlot: It's all about the colors, music, and gore.
52	* EyeScream: [[spoiler:Sara's corpse has ''giant pins stuck in its eyes''.]]
53	* FacelessEye: The eyes that stare at Pat through the window.
54	* {{Fainting}}: Suzy faints during ballet practice supposedly because of anemia. [[spoiler:It's actually because of an enchantment a witch put on her.]]
55	* FairyTaleMotifs: Argento has said that the story was inspired by ''Snow White'' ({{Wicked Witch}}es targeting helpless young girls) and it also has a lot in common with ''Hansel & Gretel''.
56	* FemmeFatalons: [[spoiler:Helena Markos fingernails are noticeably long and sharp.]]
57	* FinalGirl: Suzy has elements of this before the trope had been popularized by Laurie Strode of ''{{Film/Halloween 1978}}'' - as a responsible, studious brunette who outwits the bad guys.
58	* {{Foreshadowing}}: During Suzy's drive to the Tans Academy, the soundtrack calls out "[[spoiler:WITCH!]]" several times.
59	* {{Gorn}}: During Pat's murder, [[spoiler:the killer stabs so deeply you can actually see her heart being punctured, but that's only the beginning]]. The Magnum release is the only American release with every frame of footage (even the recent DVD releases are missing anywhere from a few frames to a few seconds of footage), and the R-rated cut is only available in a pan-and-scan release, while the uncut version is available in both pan-and-scan and letterboxed releases.
60	* GoryDiscretionShot: Surprisingly, when [[spoiler:Sara's]] throat is being slashed, we barely see the knife slicing and then we get a closeup of her eyes. Surprising, considered [[{{Gorn}} what we saw during Pat's murder]].
61	* HeKnowsTooMuch:
62	** [[spoiler:The reason why Pat is murdered by Markos. She sneaked into their inner sanctum and saw everything]].
63	** The unspoken reason why [[spoiler:the witches make Suzy ill, move her into the school, and drug her food in the first place. She saw Pat flee and might know something. When she lets it slip that Pat was talking to someone else, they target Sara too]].
64	* HollywoodDarkness: in this film, if a scene is lit with yellow or red, the characters can see. If it's lit with blue or green, the audience is to assume that they're in pitch blackness. This is why [[spoiler:Sara accidentally jumps face-first into a giant pile of barbed wire that is clearly visible to the viewer]].
65	* HumanPincushion: Pat's friend is impaled by falling glass when Pat's dead body falls through the sky light.
66	* HumanoidAbomination:[[spoiler:The BigBad is barely recognizable as a human being thanks to her being "the Black Queen."]]
67	* InformedAbility: The fact that Mater Suspiriorum is the "wisest" of the three sisters is, uh, not exactly borne out by her actions of [[spoiler: cackling like a madwoman and uttering villainous dialogue while only turning invisible.]]
68	* {{Invisibility}}: One of the special abilities of the Mother of Sighs, [[spoiler:Helena Markos]]. She tries to trick the protagonist with this ability, [[spoiler:but it doesn't work]].
69	* LargeHam: Helena Markos in the American dub, ad nauseam.
70	* {{Leitmotif}}: There are a few, but the 14-note motif used at the very beginning (entitled "Suspiria") re-appears eight additional times.
71	* LightningReveal: It defeats Helena Markos's invisibility in the climactic scene.
72	%%Zero Context Example* LoadBearingBoss: [[spoiler:Helena Markos.]]
73	%%Zero Context Example* MauveShirt: Pat, her friend, and Daniel.
74	%%* MindScrew
75	* MythologyGag: Film/TheBirdWithTheCrystalPlumage makes an appearance.
76	* MrExposition: The daytime city scenes are just straight up exposition about the Tans Academy and the witch cult.
77	* MusicalSpoiler: In this case, ''literally'', as the Goblin score will sometimes have a loud whispered ''[[spoiler:WITCH]]''. Nothing in the film indicates the presence of [[spoiler:witches]] til late in the film.
78	* NaiveNewcomer: Suzy is a new student at the school and doesn't get the weird goings on.
79	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Because of Suzy's complete trust of authority figures, she's upfront and honest about all she knows about Pat to the staff of the academy. [[spoiler: This backfires on her big time, as it makes the staff take steps to search the academy, allowing them to find Pat's diary in Sara's possession, target, and kill her while they've drugged Suzy unconscious. Later, they end up targeting Suzy herself, because her honesty and trust have shown the teachers that she also knows too much.]]
80	* NoOntologicalInertia: When Suzy [[spoiler:kills the Mother of Sighs]], the reanimated corpse pursuing her instantly disappears and soon after that the entire school burns down. This is explained by the eradication of the black magic present there [[spoiler:which was accumulated and structured in the form of a coven by Helena Markos]].
81	* NothingIsScarier: Not a lot actually ''happens'' for most of the movie, but the lurid colors and strange sets create an unsettling atmosphere that's gotten under your skin long before any deaths beyond the first two occur.
82	* OneGenderSchool: The film takes place at an all-girls' dance academy.
83	* OneWordTitle: ''Suspiria''
84	* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: In spite of taking place at a ballet school, the film features almost no dancing, obviously because the two main actresses aren't ballet dancers. Suzy has only been at the school a day before she gets sick and has to be bedridden for a while - during which the plot unfolds, giving her very little time to dance.
85	* RasputinianDeath: Pat is throttled against a window until the glass breaks and suffers numerous deep stab wounds, including her heart. Then the killer hangs her just to be sure. Honestly, not bad for a 90lb ballet student.
86	* RavenHairIvorySkin: Both Suzy and Olga clearly fit the bill.
87	* RedRightHand: The porter is ugly and has large, false teeth.
88	* SacrificialLion: [[spoiler:Sara is the supporting protagonist who takes the active role in puzzling out the witches' schemes, but she's murdered in the second act, leaving our protagonist to fend for herself in the climax]].
89	* ScarsAreForever: After Suzy kills [[spoiler:Helena Markos, the Directoress]] she becomes visible and you can see her burn scars from the fire that nearly killed her.
90	* SceneryPorn: This is probably one of the prettiest horror movies ever filmed. Take note of the gaudy interior design of Pat's friend's apartment complex.
91	* SeanConneryIsAboutToShootYou: Or in this case, Suzy Bannion is about to stab you with a hairpin.
92	* SexySlitDress: In her introduction scene, Olga wears her ballet garb under a long dress with a long slit to show off her long legs.
93	* ShoutOut: The school is apparently situated on a street called [[Creator/MCEscher Escherstrasse]]. Not coincidentally, several rooms in the film (including one ''outside'' the school, in a murder victim's apartment) feature Escher or Escher-esque motifs on the walls.
94	* SitcomArchNemesis: Olga has this vibe with Sara, though it doesn't seem to be a particularly malicious one.
95	-->'''Olga:''' Susie... Sara... I once read that names which begin with the letter 'S' are the names of SNAKES! Sssss! Ssssss! ''(Olga and Sara commence making faces at each other.)''
96	* SlashedThroat: [[spoiler:Sara]] has her throat slashed with a straight razor while trapped in a room full of razor wire.
97	* SlippingAMickey: The witches-in-disguise slip a drug in Suzy's wine that comes complimentary with her meals.
98	* SoleSurvivor: Once the main heroine kills [[spoiler:the head witch (Mater Suspiriorum, the Mother of Sighs)]], the building starts to collapse, and the moment she leaves, it bursts into flames, supposedly killing every single person within the building except for the main heroine. Luckily, that includes none of the student body as they were on a field trip to the theatre.
99	* SpannerInTheWorks: [[spoiler:Were it not for one of the teachers bringing many of the students on an unexpected field trip, the death toll from the destruction of the school after Suzy defeats Helena Markos would've been much higher. The witches were on to Suzy and set up the field trip to ensure there would be no witnesses to her death. Ironically, that just ended up saving more lives when Suzy came out on top.]]
100	* SpoilerCover: Especially latter day releases, which feature artwork of some of the film's more creative kills. To be expected with a film that's pushing 50 years old, as the assumption would be those that are buying it already know the plot.
101	%%Zero Context Example* SurrealHorror: One of the best examples of such.
102	%%Zero Context Example* ThematicSeries: Along with ''Inferno'' and ''Mother of Tears'' in the Three Mothers Trilogy.
103	* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Poor Pat has her face pushed through a window and then gets repeatedly stabbed until she dies. Then her corpse is dropped through a skylight to fall several floors and get hanged by the neck. No coming back from that.
104	* TranslationConvention: Notably averted. The film takes place in Germany with a cast of characters from around the world, but everyone speaks Italian. Snippets of English and German are occasionally heard, so it's not a case of the dialogue being translated for our benefit. People just speak Italian for no apparent reason.
105	* TrashTheSet: The Academy's [[spoiler:self-imploding]].
106	* UnexplainedAccent: It's not known why Madame Blanc has Joan Bennett's mid-Atlantic accent, given that she refers to Suzy as "that bitch of an American girl" - implying she is not American herself. It's plausible she danced in America (as she does know Suzy's aunt) and picked up the accent that way.
107	* UnresolvedSexualTension: It's pretty obvious Suzy and Mark like each other, but it never gets past the flirting stage.
108	* VaderBreath: While sleeping in the dance studio due to the school being fumigated for maggots, Sara knows that Helena Markos, the founder of the dance school and [[spoiler:The Mother of Sighs]], is in the room with them because of her loud, wheezy breathing.
109	* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The story was inspired to co-scriptwriter Daria Nicolodi by a story about her grandmother having run away from a music academy in which they also taught evil witchcraft. Dario Argento later admitted that this was purely fabricated.
110	* WhiteShirtOfDeath: Pat, her friend and [[spoiler:Sara]] all wear white as they're brutally murdered.
111	* WickedWitch: [[spoiler:Helena Markos]], the Big Bad, she's ancient, she cackles, and curses people.

Context Film / Suspiria1977