SUSPIRIA

title: SUSPIRIA

year: 1977

cast: Jessica Harper

director: Dario Argento

rating: *

It's as if the devil himself made a horror film. The problem is, he ain't subtle. Each time something bad's about to happen, grandiosely wicked music blares, the camera pans crazily, and women start screaming. The character build-up i.e. downtime, involving an American ballerina in Europe living with a group of dancers in a big evil boarding-house, is sluggish and dull. Then that hellishly-loud, torturingly-monotonous wall of thundering music sounds and another pointless character is about to die. And on and on it goes.