What makes [Suspiria] especially effective is how they use horror to make a point about educational institutions' enforcement of gender hegemony to interrogate conventional femininity.

| Jan 7, 2021

What lingers is not a sense of evil but exhilaration in how far Argento and his fellow filmmakers were willing to go to shock and delight; the movie's sheer exuberance is the cinematic equivalent of a blood transfusion.

| Oct 5, 2018

Argento accomplishes so much simply through lighting and music - which goes a long way to compensate for the stilted dialogue and awkward character interactions.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 16, 2018

Suspiria is a baroque piece of esoteric expressionism that you enter - and exit - without understanding so much as feeling.

| Dec 4, 2017

A movie that makes sense only to the eye (and even then . . .).

| Sep 1, 2009

As an appetizer to the thoroughly bizarre world of Italian horror, Suspiria is the perfect antipasto.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 26, 2007

Argento works so hard for his effects -- throwing around shock cuts, colored lights, and peculiar camera angles -- that it would be impolite not to be a little frightened.

| Mar 29, 2007

It's always fascinating to watch; the thrills and spills are so classy and fast that the movie becomes in effect what horror movies seemed like when you were too young to get in to see them.

| Jun 24, 2006

Mr. Argento's methods make potentially stomach-turning material more interesting than it ought to be.

Full Review | May 9, 2005

One can't deny Argento's technical ability to manufacture jolts, but he seems incapable of contriving a dramatic context that would make the jolts more enjoyable by virtue of being more discreet and credible.

| Jun 5, 2002

There are horror films that scare and there are horror films that quake the senses; Suspiria still rattles twenty-five years after its original release.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 27, 2001