Dance Like Everybody’s Watching (and Nobody Understands)
If Suspiria (1977) was a fever dream — a hypnotic swirl of color, terror, and camp that made no sense but somehow worked — then Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 remake is that same dream after being analyzed to death by a philosophy major who just discovered Marxism and interpretive dance.
It’s the horror equivalent of being trapped at a modern art exhibition where everyone around you is whispering, “It’s brilliant,” while you stare at a pile of fake entrails wondering when it’s polite to leave.
Suspiria (2018) isn’t a movie so much as an endurance test. A two-and-a-half-hour séance where witches pirouette, old men cry, and Dakota Johnson stares meaningfully at walls while Thom Yorke hums in the background like a ghost who just broke up with his band.
And yes, Tilda Swinton plays three roles. Because of course she does.
The Plot: Or, How I Learned to Stop Caring and Love the Pretension
Let’s try to unpack the plot — though that’s like trying to untangle Christmas lights that are on fire.
Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson), a naive dancer from Ohio, joins the Markos Dance Academy in 1977 Berlin, a city so gray and miserable it looks like depression got a film credit. What she doesn’t know is that the school is actually run by a coven of witches — because of course it is — and they’re up to some sort of body-swapping, blood-letting, feminist ritual thing.
Meanwhile, Tilda Swinton plays Madame Blanc, the dance instructor who communicates entirely through cryptic glances and abstract movement, and also plays Dr. Josef Klemperer, an elderly male psychiatrist with more screen time than the actual plot. (She’s credited under the name “Lutz Ebersdorf,” as if anyone was fooled by that.)
There’s also a subplot about the Baader-Meinhof Group, Cold War guilt, and the moral weight of post-Nazi Germany. Because what this movie about witch ballerinas really needed was political allegory.
At one point, the camera lingers on a protest for so long you start wondering if you accidentally switched to a German history documentary.
The Horror: More Ballet, Less Blood (Until There’s Way Too Much of Both)
The 1977 Suspiria was pure nightmare logic: vivid color palettes, baroque death scenes, and a fairy-tale atmosphere that made you feel both scared and weirdly delighted. Guadagnino’s version, by contrast, trades all that for drab realism and the color palette of Soviet oatmeal.
He wanted the visuals to be “winterish” and “bleak.” Mission accomplished, Luca — it’s so bleak I thought my TV settings broke.
When the film does get violent, it’s grotesque. One infamous scene involves a dancer contorting into a human pretzel while Susie twirls upstairs, every bone snapping in cinematic 4K detail. It’s the kind of scene that makes you wince, then check the runtime, then realize you still have two more hours of interpretive witch jazz left to go.
The climactic witch sabbath is where the movie goes completely off the rails — a full-on orgy of blood, nudity, and shrieking where Dakota Johnson’s Susie suddenly reveals herself as Mother Suspiriorum, the supreme witch all along. Which is fascinating, because up until then she’d had the personality of lukewarm porridge.
It’s the kind of twist that makes you go, “Wait, what?” right before a head explodes in slow motion.
The Cast: Great Actors, Terrible Haircuts
Let’s give credit where it’s due — the cast is stacked. But they’re all trapped in a film that mistakes “confusing” for “profound.”
Dakota Johnson deserves a medal for keeping a straight face through scenes where she has to pretend her dance moves are summoning demons. She’s giving “serious actress in an art film” energy, but she’s stuck in a role that could’ve been played by a sentient broom.
Tilda Swinton, however, is clearly having a blast. She plays a regal witch, a decaying witch, and an old German man — all with the same icy conviction. She’s so committed that you start wondering if she’s actually immortal and just agreed to document a few centuries of her own life.
Mia Goth does what she can as Susie’s friend Sara, but mostly exists to discover the academy’s secrets and then die horribly. And poor Chloë Grace Moretz — she’s in the movie for about three minutes before being spirited away by the coven. It’s as if Guadagnino hired her just to prove he could.
The Music: Thom Yorke’s Haunted Yoga Playlist
The score, by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, is undeniably atmospheric. It’s haunting, moody, and sounds like it was composed by a man who just found out his vinyl collection was cursed.
But after two hours of melancholic piano and whisper-singing, you start wishing the witches would just sacrifice him too.
Every dance scene feels like a music video for existential dread. It’s the kind of soundtrack that would make even a demon pause mid-possession and ask, “Hey, is everyone okay?”
Themes: Witches, Women, and War Guilt (Oh My!)
The film thinks it’s saying something profound about womanhood, power, and historical trauma. But by the end, it’s just witches dancing to Thom Yorke while occasionally exploding people like overripe tomatoes.
Yes, it’s technically a story about female empowerment — but it’s also about an old witch controlling other women’s bodies through interpretive art. Which, let’s be honest, feels a little counterproductive.
And the Cold War backdrop? It adds about as much tension as a tax seminar. Every time the camera cuts from witch rituals to German radicals, it’s like being yanked from a horror movie into a lecture on European sociology.
This movie doesn’t have subtext — it has sprawl.
The Tone: Art-House Horror or 2.5-Hour Prank?
Guadagnino clearly wanted to make an “elevated” horror film — something classy, intellectual, the kind of movie where people nod thoughtfully instead of scream. Unfortunately, in trying so hard to transcend the genre, he made something that barely qualifies as horror or entertainment.
There are moments of brilliance, yes — a haunting shot here, a chilling sound there — but they’re buried under so much self-importance that the film collapses under its own metaphorical weight.
By the time the credits roll, you’re not scared, you’re exhausted.
And yet, in that exhaustion, there’s something almost admirable. It’s not every day you watch a horror movie that makes you wish for subtitles explaining its own symbolism.
The Ending: Witch, Please
The finale is a full-blown blood opera — a ritual dance sequence straight out of Hellraiser: The Ballet. Limbs fly, witches scream, and the camera spins like it’s had too much absinthe.
Then Susie, now revealed as Witch Queen Extraordinaire, gives everyone the gift of mercy (read: instant death) and erases a man’s memory with a gentle touch.
If that sounds confusing, don’t worry — you’re not supposed to understand it. You’re supposed to feel it. Specifically, feel like you just wasted your evening watching something that should’ve come with a reading list.
Final Thoughts: “Suspiria” — A Masterpiece for People Who Hate Fun
Suspiria (2018) is a film that mistakes boredom for boldness and chaos for complexity. It’s gorgeously shot, impeccably acted, and utterly joyless — the cinematic equivalent of drinking cold coffee in a mausoleum while someone whispers about feminism and fascism in your ear.
It’s art, sure — but it’s the kind of art that makes you long for a good old-fashioned jump scare and some neon blood.
If the original Suspiria was a nightmare you couldn’t wake up from, Guadagnino’s version is a lecture you can’t escape from — one delivered by witches in turtlenecks who take interpretive dance way too seriously.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 cursed leotards.
Because the only thing truly terrifying here is realizing you still have an hour left.
