The only thing more terrifying than the last 12 minutes of Suspiria are the first 92.*
Which is technically true, since most of the film is psychological horror/mystery, while the last twelve minutes are more of an action film with far less gore involved.
—Tagline
A ballet student goes to perfect her art in a Freiburg Academy. Of course, as young female students are being murdered, this is a bad idea.Probably the most famous (and arguably the best, though it's often in contention with Deep Red for that honor) Dario Argento film, Suspiria is a movie that doesn't play by any rules. Fans of Umineko no Naku Koro ni will find quite a bit of value in this film, as the game and series take very heavy inspiration from it. First part of the Three Mothers by Director Dario Argento which also includes Inferno (1980) and Mother of Tears (2007).
This film provides examples of:
All There in the Manual: The significance of hangings, throat-slittings, the Directoress' distinctive snoring, and the coven's deaths by asphyxiation only make sense if you know that the Directoress is the Mother of Sighs. This is important in the inspiration and the sequels, but makes less sense here.
Animals Hate Him: Daniel's guide dog attacks Albert, Madame Blanc's nephew.
Anyone Can Die: It's an Argento movie. What did you expect?
Better Than It Sounds Film: Try describing the plot of this movie to someone briefly without making it sound like a silly stereotypic haunted house ride. With witches. Go ahead.
Blind Musician: In one scene, where there's ballet practice, the music is played by Daniel, a blind man with a guide dog.
Big Bad: Helena Markos Mater Suspirium, the Mother of Sighs.
Bookcase Passage: Helena Markos, the Directoress and Mother of Sighs is in a hidden room that can be accessed by turning the blue iris on the wall in Madame Blanc's office.
Death Trap: While following the teachers at night, Sara gets chased by an unseen killer and jumps out of a window into a room full of razor wire.
Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead: Once the Big Bad is killed, the threat is neutralized because the other members of the coven are powerless without the leader and die.
Dissonant Serenity: After defeating the Load-Bearing Boss, one could almost forgive the victor from forgetting that every last student in the school is burning to death, despite being innocent of wrongdoing, except that said students were actually in town seeing a play with a (apparently not-evil) teacher at the time.
Empathic Environment: The storm at the end mirrors the destruction of the school.
Gorn: During Pat's murder, the killer stabs so deeply you can actually see her heart being punctured, but that's only the beginning. The Magnum release is the only American release with every frame of footage (even the recent DVD releases are missing anywhere from a few frames to a few seconds of footage), and the R-rated cut is only available in a pan-and-scan cut, while the uncut version is available in both pan-and-scan and letterboxed versions.
Human Pincushion: Pat's friend is impaled by falling glass when Pat's dead falls through the sky light.
Improbably Female Cast: The main players are all female. The male character with the most dialogue in the film is the psychiatrist, and he has only one scene at the end.
Invisibility: One of the Witch of Sighs Helena Markos special abilities. She tries to trick the protagonist with this ability, but it doesn't work.
No Endor Holocaust: Were it not for the play, the witches wouldn't have been the only casualties of the coven's destruction.
No Name Given: The actress portraying the Directoress Helena Markos, the titular Mother of Sighs receives no casting credit. According to the co-writer of the script, she was a former prostitute found in Rome, but apparently nobody knows anything more about her.
No Ontological Inertia: When Suzy kills the mother of sighs, the reanimated corpse pursuing her instantly disappears and soon after that the entire school burns down. The possible reason might be the erradication of the black magic present there.
Scars Are Forever: After Suzy kills Helena Markos, the Directoress she becomes visible and you can see her burn scars from the fire that nearly killed her.
Slashed Throat: Sara, Suzy's friend, has her throat slashed with a straight razor while trapped in a room full of razor wire.
Slipping a Mickey: The witches-in-disguise slip a drug in Suzy's wine that comes complimentary with her meals.
Sole Survivor: Once the main heroine kills the head witch (Suspirorum, the Mother of Sighs), the building starts to collapse, and the moment she leaves, it bursts into flames, supposedly killing every single person within the building except for the main heroine.
Which, luckily, includes none of the student body as they were on a field trip to the theatre.
Spanner in the Works: Were it not for one of the teachers bringing many of the students on an unexpected field trip, the death toll from the destruction of the school after Suzy defeats Helena Markos would've been much higher. The witches were on to Suzy and set up the field trip to ensure there would be no witnesses to her death.
There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The first murder in particular is astoundingly brutal, often earning a place on lists of the most grisly murders in cinema.
Token Good Teammate: The teacher that took the students to see a play and in the process quite possibly saved their lives when the school went down with Helena Markos.
Vader Breath: While sleeping in the dance studio due to the school being fumigated for maggots, Sara knows that Helena Marcos, the founder of the dance school and The Mother of Sighs, is in the room with them because of her loud, wheezy breathing.
Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The story was inspired to co-scriptwriter Daria Nicolodi by a story about her grandmother having run away from a music academy in which they also taught evil witchcraft.
Wicked Witch: Helena Markos, the Big Bad, she's ancient, she cackles, and curses people.
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