Suspiria - Blu-ray

There was a time when the ultimate baptism of fire for any future partner would revolve around how they reacted when I showed them Suspiria. If they could stomach Suspiria without the exclamation “you’re really f**ked up!” that the relationship had any chance of surviving. For the uneducated Suspiria is a harsh vivid depiction for horror, for the more educated it was probably one of the tamer movies I had in my collection.

Dario Argento’s 1977 horror movie has always been one of the greatest assaults on the senses of any horror movie. With its lavish sets, vivid ear trembling Goblin soundtrack, and gross out prolonged gore; Suspiria is a sceptical on any level. To look at it is a thing of beauty, even if the story itself suffers some flaws. The 21^st Century has bought something new to visual entertainment, something that Argento’s spectacular movie was made for, the wonder that is high definition viewing.

The movie itself surrounds a young American woman who travels to an acclaimed school of dance in Europe. Susie Banyon (Jessica Harper) is immediately offended by the German manners she encounters, the taxi driver is rude and insensitive and her expected warm greeting at the school is just a locked door. But Susie witnesses something, a strange series of events, these events lead to the death of one of her potential classmates in a highly unusual manner. Susie’s stay is drenched in further unsociable behaviour, and more equally disturbing deaths. In a strange country, and the talk of witchcraft banded about like it’s perfectly acceptable, Susie’s stay slowly gets worse.

In 1977 and for considerable years after, few movies had quite the same effect as Suspiria. The movie clearly put Italian cinema on the map in respect of horror, and gave the very stagnant horror styling’s of American and British horror a much needed wake up call. This was a movie that ticked all the right boxes and gave horror movies across the world something they craved, a really good scare. Its amazing to think but it took over two decades for American cinema to catch up, now the sort of terror you receive in Suspiria is commonplace in cinema, but well ahead of its time.

Suspiria is quite unpleasant in its character depictions, everyone in the movie including the character of Susie is fairly unlikeable, all very blunt and to the point, with appalling attitudes and beliefs. The main negative result of this is that when characters die you are not particularly bothered. Its not all bad it’s the unpleasantness that also gives the movie part of its charm.

For me personally the most impressive aspects of the movie are its style and soundtrack. Argento goes out of his way to deliver some of the most impressive looking architecture you could ever wish to see on film, the colours are so vivid, the structures so over the top and overstated. The décor for the movie is incredibly “loud”, from the bright red exteriors, to the lavish blue velour interiors; you really would be incredibly hard to find something that looks anything like this.

Onto the movies score, performed and composed by Italian Prog. Rock band Goblin. The wonder of their score is that you do not need to see the movie, only hear the music to get a glimpse of exactly how terrifying the movie is. Suspiria is a movie that’s main mechanism is its score, from heavy pounding electric guitars to haunting vocal whispers. Never has a movie been so well served by its soundtrack, take the soundtrack away and you have less than half a movie.

From a special effects perspective Argento delivers something quite spectacular, victims are slowly bleed on razor sharp wire, throats are ripped out, and hearts stabbed in ripped open chest cavities. While the blood effects are over the top, they are representative of the movies other vivid colours. Like the depiction of horror Argento was decades ahead of more popular horror cinema, to the extent that it has taken all this time for English speaking movies to catch up.

I wont lie, the acting needs a little to be desired, and its not even the fault of dubbing. It could however be on the part of Argento’s direction however, trying to take the viewer on a more ghostly experience by making the performances a little less animated than they should. You don’t quite get the impression that a couple of the characters are fighting for their lives, and this is in some ways an inexcusable flaw.

Praise put aside Suspiria does have a bit of a problem, and that is after an initial viewing it never quite lives up to the excitement of the first viewing (unlike a lot of other Argento movies), personally I have found Suspiria quite difficult to watch the whole way through for a few years now. It still impresses with its gore, overwhelms you with its soundtrack but needed something new to take it forward. That “new” is the wonder of Blu-ray, the experience is like a fresh one, the definition of colour has never looked so amazing, the clarity of vision a shining example of why high definition came about, I would go as far as to say that Suspiria on high definition makes a viewing experience that will take a long time for anything to catch up with it or equalled. Imagine taking something that already looked a step ahead of other high definition movies, then ramped the visual feast up a level. Few movies matched up to Suspira on DVD, now I find it hard to believe anything will match up to the movie in its Blu-ray format. Photographs cannot capture what has happened here, neither can text, but believe me when I say you’ll never see anything like this, and even if you are not a fan of the horror genre, you’ll find some redeeming features here.

Special Features:

Fear At 400 Degrees: The Cine-Excess Of Suspiria:- This talking head feature has some quality talking heads, but is head butted full force by the banal ramblings of Xavier Mendik a cult movie specialist. Mendik is the variety of soul who will chuck as many big words as he possibly can into a sentence, whether it’s a because of a severe dictionary beating, or whether its to sound impressive it just spoils what would otherwise be a quality release. Talking like he lives in the world of the tongue twister, (Peter Piper springs to mind) Mendik baffles then mispronounces as many works as he can, leaving a thick dirty taste in my mouth. The documentary is further hindered by the bizarre ratio it’s presented with. After a beautiful crisp clear widescreen movie, you then get this bizarre, poor quality print documentary that sits centre screen surrounded by borders. The legend that is Kim Newman, Patricia McCormack, Norman J. Warren, Claudio Simonetti and last but no means least Dario Argento adds the quality element to this otherwise odd documentary.

A very real audio commentary finds Kim Newman and Alan Jones discussing the movie in a very unscripted manner, some commentaries are put together almost scripted. Here you believe your listening to two great friends discussing a movie that in a number of ways has changed their lives.

Finally Suspiria Perspectives is a series of conversations with the characters outlined in the main documentary, its kind of like watching the edited bits not quite suitable for the documentary, but on the whole is just more elaborate discussion of the wonders of Suspiria.

Suspiria is available only in the UK at present on the Blu-ray format.

New York Ripper

In the 1970's a director best associated with comedies and musicals began making horror movies, that director was Lucio Fulci who was and still is one of the most influential men in shaping modern horror. His successful movies The Beyond, Zombi, House By The Cemetery, and City Of The Living Dead were landmark zombie movies. But not content to rest on his laurels Fulci was pushing into new styles of horror, his intention to make horror possible in a realistic sense. The result of this was The Black Cat, and New York Ripper both the sort of horror we could encounter every day.

New York Ripper (Lo Squatatore Di New York)begins as it means to continue, an elderly man throwing sticks for his beloved dog is rather mortified to discover his dog returns not with a stick but with a hand, luckily or unluckily for the owner the hand is not attached to anyone.

Lt. Fred Williams (Jack Hedley) is called in to solve the case, but then a cyclist is found murdered on the Statten Island Ferry, killed in the most brutal of ways. The chief of police (a cunning cameo from director Lucio Fulci) insists that Williams gets to the bottom of the killings sooner rather than later "We don't want another Atlanta!" he warns, and with that seemingly gives Williams the keys to the New York Police's bank account.

Having hired the best genius around to help him solve the crime Williams has to literally wait for the killer to strike again. But when he does there is not much to go on except that the killer talks like a duck. Meanwhile a sexually liberated woman tours New York's most seedy dives looking for sex, a well to do woman with a reputable husband her need for sexual gratification take her closer and closer to the killer.

To help you build up an image we have a killer that talks like a duck, and as we later discover has two digits missing from his right hand; nice image?

I cannot say that New York Ripper is a real high point in horror history, its rather seedy reputation is actually far stronger than the menace it delivers; before I saw the movie some 8 years ago the film to some degree was almost like a myth. When you looked on the internet you could find pictures of graphic razorblade torture and sexual activity; website realmofhorror.co.uk gave me the best insight in the form of the trailer, which allowed for a certain feel to the movie. Sadly my eagerness to see the movie was met with a kind of cold and unworthy story, that sexually is incredibly risky compared to other movies, especially when death often occurs by things being forced into a certain part of a woman's body. This is not a movie that overly inspired me, however having watched it yesterday in its slightly edited form (for the first time I may add, always seeing it uncut before) I kind of had a greater appreciation for the film. The aspects that annoyed me no longer did and the story, which at times before I felt jutted in and out of context seemed far more fluid.

Before I go on I should say if you find movies like Jeepers Creepers, Scream, or the Freddy or Jason movies a little bit scary or graphic even in a cut form this is not a movie you should be seeing. Although the effects are not always so special, when a razor blade strikes you see it enter, cut and exit. You also see a rather painful finger slicing that is incredibly plausible and believably realistic.

Shot on the hoof so to speak in New York, the movie shows a pretty accurate view of New York back in the early 80's. It shows the classdifferences, the devastation and almost wasteland as industry has left the city for more rural locations. There is nothing clean looking about the majority of the movies locations. In case you wonder about my on the hoof comment as was commonplace with Italian horror movies no permission was gained from the places they filmed, certainly when out of the UK. Often filming took place by literally people jumping out of the car filming a few shots and then heading off before the police arrived; this is blatantly obvious here by the length of the outdoor scenes.

The cast is an interesting gathering Jack Hedley's name might ring a bell because not only was he in For Your Eyes Only, but he also played General Von Karzibrot in Allo Allo. Paulo Malco who plays Dr Paul Davis recently starred in the ITV's version of A Room With A View. While the movies toe pervert (you need to see it to believe it) is played by 24's Josh Cruze. Granted not names you might think "oh yeah I know" but certainly faces you will know.

The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue

When it comes to Euro Horror, Italy by far leads the way; a close second however is Spain. During the early 1970's their short lived victory paved the road ready for Italy to roll through. During this time movies like Tombs Of The Blind Dead were great success stories but in 1974 No profanar el sueño de los metros, or Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue as it was known in the UK became the best known of the Spanish/Italian  horror epics.

George is owns an antiques store in Manchester, for the weekend he plans a trip to Windermere to visit a new house he has purchased as a retreat from society. On his trip he encounters Edna who accidentally reverses her car over his motorbike. George insists that Edna takes him to Windermere being as the accident was her fault. However on the journey Edna persuades him to detour to a nearby town where she needs to visit her sister by a certain time.

Having arrived near the beautiful riverside home of her sister, George goes off in search of directions from a nearby farm in order to make the final short distance. But while he looks for directions Edna encounters Guthrie the local down and out, who not only terrifies her, he launches an violent attack on her. Having managed to escape Guthrie Edna is reunited with George and a local farmer, who identifies by description Edna's attacker; the only thing he finds difficult to comprehend is the fact that Guthrie has been dead for a week.

The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue is a movie that is known by more alternative names than any other; alternative titles include Breakfast At The Manchester Morgue, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, Don't Open The Window, and interestingly enough Zombie 3 (interesting as it received this title before Zombie 1 and 2 were even made). The movie was influential in the fact that a Zombie movie had never gone into such graphic detail before. There are lengthy scenes of organ eating and flesh being ripped open. But its most acclaimed special effect was a recently autopsied corpse complete with stitches falling open that turned the stomachs of audiences world wide. Even now 33 years after the movie was made the special effects can at times be very graphic, although you are fully aware that these contents were probably purchased that day down the local butchers.

While the special effects have stood the test of time the movie has not, it's a considerable time into the movie before things have kicked off, I'd say about 45 minutes. And unfortunately the movie has been dubbed into English and the accents and dialogue are hard to swallow. Having endured the terrible voices for 45 minutes by the time things have started you have almost lost all interest. Most annoyingly George, a Manchester Lad has a broad Michael Caine style East End accent.

The action is very drawn out, with periods of 20 minutes between incidents, culminating in a massive crescendo of blood and guts during the last 8 minutes of the movie.

One of the most annoying parts for me for the movie was the dramatically increasing size of the town they are staying in. What starts off as a 100+ dwelling location, soon develops into 500 and then 1000. The reason for this is down to the fact that like a lot of Euro Horror no permission was ever sought for filming locations. So the filmmakers would turn up in a location, film as much as they could before piling into their vans and running off before the police caught up. When of course the police caught up or got close they would have to move on to other locations in order to finish the movie. Luckily they had managed to film the lengthier scenes uninterrupted. The effect of this obviously made the picture look a bit dysfunctional. And this overall issue scars the movie heavily.

Another annoying issue is the fact that in this rural location Edna's sister is revealed to be a very popular drug abusing prostitute. But its obvious that it would be very difficult to peddle either of her vices in such a town. Its also odd that the town has such a massive police force, as most of us are aware most rural locations in the UK only have one or two police officers and historically always have, but this location has police officers, scenes of crime officers and CID. Not to mention the fact that they all bare arms.

Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue for me is one of the most boring of all Euro Horrors. While it wins some wars it fails on so many other fronts. It a real heavy going journey of a movie that will leave you cold for the most part; not cold from fear I should add, cold from boredom. Its poorly scripted, poorly cast, poorly acted, and incredibly poorly dubbed. If you're a completes freak that's into horror then it's a valuable addition to your collection, failing that it's a pile of pap that will sit on your shelf for a long time before seeing the light of day again.