Film

Suspiria

Name: Suspiria
Genre: Horror
Released: 1977
Cast: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosé, Barbara Magnolfi

Other titles called Suspiria: the 2018 film.

Supernatural horror
Very dark

Dario Argento's fever-dream horror puts colour and sound ahead of coherence: an American dancer arrives at a German ballet academy and the film dissolves into shrieking Goblin score, blood-red corridors, and dream logic that barely bothers with plot. It's less a story than a sensory assault — gorgeous, hysterical, deliberately overwrought. Perfect for anyone who wants horror as pure style; maddening if you need explanations or restraint.

TMDb rating

3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love horror that works through colour, sound and dread rather than jump scares, and you don't mind a plot that feels more like a fever dream than a puzzle to solve.

Skip it if you need a story that makes tidy sense, or you find baroque, heavily stylised visuals and dialogue tiring, because the film is more interested in atmosphere than explanation.

What it asks of you: About ninety-nine minutes, mostly slow-building and then suddenly brutal, so it rewards patience and close attention to what is on screen rather than to what is said.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Deep Red1975

Argento's own giallo masterpiece, made two years before Suspiria, with Goblin's score turned into a character in its own right — the blueprint for the mood Suspiria then perfects.

But A more conventional whodunit structure, so if you want pure dream-logic abandon, this feels almost restrained by comparison.

Phenomena1985

Argento again, another isolated girls' school, this time with maggots, chimpanzees, and Jennifer Connelly's telepathic bond with insects — utterly deranged and gorgeous to look at.

But The plot makes even less sense than Suspiria's, and the tonal whiplash between horror and camp can wear you out.

Black Swan2010

Ballet as body horror — obsession and transformation shot with feverish intensity as a dancer's mind unravels under brutal institutional pressure and ambition.

But Grounded psychological realism rather than supernatural excess — the horror is internal, not a coven lurking in the walls.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Suspiria

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Blood and Black Lace1964

Bava was Argento's direct forerunner and acknowledged influence — the same colour-as-dread technique, thirteen years earlier, wearing the giallo mystery instead of supernatural horror.

Before Argento, there was Mario Bava — the film that invented the lurid, colour-coded murder aesthetic Suspiria later pushes into full psychedelia, lit like a stained-glass nightmare.

But Slower, more traditional mystery pacing; the shock lives in the visuals, not in sensory overload.

Hereditary2018

A modern master of dread builds slow, then detonates into occult horror as devastating as anything Argento staged, with grief itself as the real monster.

But Patient and character-driven horror — expect none of Suspiria's garish colour or operatic, breakneck pacing.

The Neon Demon2016

Refn drenches the fashion world in the same saturated, hypnotic dread — beauty as menace, style pushed until it curdles into horror.

But Even slower and more opaque than Suspiria, with long stretches that prioritise mood over anything like narrative momentum.

Rosemary's Baby1968

The urtext of 'your neighbours are a coven and no one will believe you' — paranoia tightening around a woman trapped inside an institution she can't escape.

But Muted, naturalistic 1960s New York instead of Suspiria's saturated nightmare; the dread here whispers rather than screams.

The Shining1980

A building as a living threat, dread built through architecture and sound design rather than gore — horror as pure, controlled atmosphere.

But Cold and glacially paced where Suspiria is hot and hysterical; Kubrick's precision is the opposite temperament entirely.

Possession1981

European arthouse horror at its most unhinged — marital collapse curdling into something monstrous, performances pitched at operatic, screaming extremity.

But Genuinely gruelling and emotionally exhausting rather than stylish fun; this is horror as psychic assault, not spectacle.

Mandy2018

A synth-drenched, colour-saturated revenge fantasy that treats style as substance the same way Argento does, with Nicolas Cage fully unleashed.

But Trades Suspiria's claustrophobic dance school for open-road vengeance carnage; louder, bloodier, far less interested in mystery.

Picnic at Hanging Rock1975

Shares Suspiria's setting — an isolated school of young women — and its faith in mood over explanation, but swaps horror's machinery for pure, unresolved dread.

An Australian girls'-school mystery from the very same year as Deep Red, all hazy dread and unresolved horror — proof that atmosphere alone can unsettle as much as any coven.

But Nothing is explained and nothing is gory; if you want answers or scares, this only offers unease.

House1977

1977's other great girls'-versus-supernatural-evil film, taking the same premise and detonating it into camp — same DNA, opposite temperament entirely.

Made the same year as Suspiria, this is Japanese horror gone gleefully insane — a haunted house devouring schoolgirls via killer pianos and severed heads that bite.

But Deliberately silly and cartoonish where Suspiria is deadly serious; closer to a fever-dream comedy than genuine dread.