Movie review: Plenty of blood, little terror in remake of cult classic 'Suspiria'

“Suspiria” - ★ ★

The original “Suspiria” did a lot with a little. Dario Argento's 1977 film featured cheap-looking sets, badly dubbed dialogue, laughable overacting, blood that looked like it came from a Sherwin-Williams can, and a gossamer-thin plot about a young American student at a German dance academy who discovers that the school is a front for an ancient coven of murderous witches.

And yet that film, now considered a cult classic, managed to create and sustain a mood of psychological terror.

The new remake of “Suspiria,” by the Italian director of “Call Me by Your Name” Luca Guadagnino, does the exact opposite. It takes every resource available to a recently minted Oscar nominee - cash, Hollywood stars, handsome cinematography (by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom), music by Radiohead's Thom Yorke and a screenplay that is stuffed with ideas - but does almost nothing with it.

Worst of all, it isn't even especially scary.

As in the original, “Suspiria” begins with the arrival of American dance student Susie (Dakota Johnson) at a venerable German dance academy, just as Patricia (Chloë Grace Moretz), a traumatized current student, is seen fleeing in a fugue state. Unlike the original, however, the new film acknowledges the existence of the outside world. Set in a divided Berlin, the story takes place against the backdrop of the October 1977 hijacking of Lufthansa flight 181 by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group that sought the release of members of the Red Army Faction (aka the Baader-Meinhof Gang). Patricia may or may not have had associations with the militant leftists.

But put that question right out of your head.

You'll need room in it to accommodate other characters that come and go here, like poltergeists, in a haunted house of a script that includes, to name only a few: Patricia's Jewish psychiatrist - and Holocaust survivor - Josef Klemperer; the school's demanding artistic director, Madame Blanc (both played by Tilda Swinton); and Susie's Mennonite mother (Malgosia Bela), who is seen in creepy if inscrutable deathbed flashbacks.

Blanc's magnum opus is a dance, said to have been created in 1948, called “Volk” (German for “the people”). The subtext only overburdens a story that is no more substantial than the 1977 original, despite being loaded up with heavy-sounding gobbledygook.

There's also a disturbing, if unintended, undercurrent of misogyny, epitomized not only by the theme of witchcraft (a manifestation of men's fear of women's power), but in the film's frequent nudity and violent objectification of women's bodies.

“Suspiria” culminates in a climax so bloody, gross and confusing that you may feel like you need an explainer just to understand the several explainer articles that have cropped up online, like flies on a corpse, to help viewers process the over-the-top ending.

That said, there are some things to admire about “Suspiria.” Blanc's dance, choreographed by Damien Jalet, features a muscular sequence of angular thrusts and jerks, convincingly delivered by Johnson and other actresses. In the context of the film, it works beautifully. And Swinton (who also does triple-duty in a third role, late in the film) delivers her usual tour de force performance, one that is never less than spellbinding.

It's hard to know who “Suspiria” is for. Arguably too radical a re-imagining for fans of the first film, it's also likely to be too pretentious for aficionados of workaday horror. Call it an art house slasher film. Call it a beautiful mess. Just don't call me with questions about what it means.

Starring: Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnson, Chloë Grace Moretz

Directed by: Luca Guadagnino

Other: An Amazon Studios release. Rated R for language, nudity, sexual situations and violence. 152 minutes