I think it's unwise to use movies as a guide for reality
Argento is honestly a man for some of these shots. The camera is the most energetic I’ve seen, not just from a giallo, but from any film. Some of these images will be burned in my memory, as if I had been forced to keep my eyes fixated on the screen with the threat of needles poking them out if I didn’t. I was debating if this was better than Tenebre but when the camera is a raven I was totally sold.
Why don’t you call your insects?
Jennifer Connelly, insect control, a gloved killer, a monkey, and a boarding school seem like such an out-there premise that it wouldn’t work, but it does. A weird quasi-superhero unnatural giallo. Far from the heights of Suspiria but an unnerving exercise in style from Argento nonetheless.
Somebody who should be dead is alive, or somebody who should be alive is already dead
I appreciate self-reflexive pieces of work, much like Leone’s own reckoning with the genre he created, but this one feels tangible and with some substance to it, rather than straight condemnation. Argento is actually looking for something here, and beyond that, places blame that feels more than simply performative to satiate critics. This still delivers exactly what you want and expect from a giallo, but has a weight to it that other Argento entries haven’t yet.
There are mysterious parts in that book, but the only true mystery is that our very lives are governed by dead people
This one’s tough because I do feel like a dream-style narrative could work so well with Argento’s nightmare visuals, I just don’t think this end product worked as a cohesive whole to me.
Bad luck isn't brought by broken mirrors, but by broken minds
Nothing short of a Technicolor nightmare with plenty of mood and atmosphere. Evocative, brutal kills while killer synths and the colour red overwhelm the senses to the point of genuine fear. Suspiria absolutely rips.
You know, sometimes what you actually see, and what you imagine, get mixed up in your memory like a cocktail, where you can no longer distinguish one flavour from another
If this were 10-15 minutes shorter, I think it would’ve been perfect. It’s less succinct and suspenseful because of the runtime, but other than that it’s an Argento film that I appreciate a lot for its style, which seems to be at its most fulfilling at this point in his career.