SUSPIRIA

Wednesday, February 20, 2013, 5-7:30 pm
1104 S. Wabash, Room 504

Co-presented by the Film & Video and Theatre Departments

Following the Theatre department's staged reading of Suspiria by Dario Argento, the Film & Video department is presenting a screening of the uncensored and re-mastered horror classic from the original negative

Outside of devoted cult audiences, many Americans have yet to discover the extremely stylish, relentlessly terrifying Italian horror genre, or the films of its talented virtuoso, Dario Argento. Suspiria  is considered his masterpiece by Argento devotees but also doubles as a perfect starting point for those unfamiliar with the director or his genre. The convoluted plot follows an American dancer (Jessica Harper) from her arrival at a European ballet school to her discovery that it's actually a witches coven; but, really, don't worry about that too much. Argento makes narrative subservient to technique, preferring instead to assault the senses and nervous system with mood, atmosphere, illusory gore, garish set production, a menacing camera, and perhaps the creepiest score ever created for a movie. It's essentially a series of effectively unsettling set pieces--a raging storm that Harper should have taken for an omen, and a blind man attacked by his own dog are just two examples--strung together on a skeleton structure. But once you've seen it, you'll never forget it.

Experience the most shocking and hallucinatory horror movie in history as you've never seen or heard it before, now featuring the fully remastered landmark score by Goblin and a heart-stopping new film transfer supervised by cinematographer Luciano Tovoli.

This is the definitive version of Argento’s Suspiria, an aria of terror beyond imagination and one of the most extraordinary horror films ever made.