I'd be pretty shocked that a library wouldn't carry it. or even a major video chain. i must say it is probably the most well known/famous italian horror film ,and has definately crossed over into the mainstream if any one has. If you aren't finding suspiria, you won't find any of the others. I would suggest opening the phone book and just calling any video store in the area. The smaller ones, even if they seem dinky, usually have decent horror sections, and you might be more likely to find them there.

Eagle, this is Pittsburg no? Its a big city, I'm sure the public library and/or a stor near you carries it. same ges for Zingy in/around Philly, and torri in/around DC.

I would be a real cheat and say go to a tower records or virgin megastore, watch it once, just keep the wrapping all nice and the receipt, and then return it the next day saying it was either faulty or a gift to your dad who you only later discovered already owned it. If they ask why it was unwrapped say you asked your little brother to wrap it, and your brother was too young to understand that the wrapper should stay on. any dvd/video sales place should definately have it.

as for me...just got my hands on a copy an hour ago. Yikes!

-Dolce

Dolce's right. You guys gotta be able to find it somewhere.

Galia, do you know if you got the uncut version or not?

I don't know. Its a rental dvd and it doesn't have a cover. It doesn't say anything on the actual disc, but I'm assuming since its a dvd that the un-cut version is available on it.

-Dolce

Ok,

Two of my friends are going to the mall, I am not going for obvious reasons, but I am making them go to a DVD store and if it is there ill blind buy it and give them the money later!

So hopefully it is there! Ill keep you informed.

KJ

Got It!

Ill be watching it either today or tomorrow.

I heard there were two kinds, the regular edition or the limited edition.

Because I am blind buying I went with the regular, I don't know if that means it is un-cut or not.

KJ

http://www.dvdempire.com/Exec/v4_item.a ... m_id=35714

If this is the cover, you got the unrated regular edition.

I am preparing myself for the Horor Movies Festivals with my avatar which represents a horror icon.

The library didn't have a copy either...seriously. http://www.montgomerylibrary.org or http://www.mont.lib.md.us

I'll check at Blockbuster...even though I've vowed not to support it. Bleh.

I believe to have finally found a video store that has it. I'll go there tomorrow.

hA!

So i went downstairs to do my laundry.
And lo and behold, there was a list up of people selling things .. one of them was of VHS movies being sold. Goign through the list, guess what I find: Suspiria.

So I went and bought it. I'll try to watch it tonight.

I watched it.

I have a very strong opinion on it.

So I will wait till everyone sees it.

KJ

Eagle.

Quick

in terms of sexuality.

I need to know whats in there.

cause then, i have to be careful about viewing it with certain crowds

No sex in it, bABA.

nooodity?

I don't think so. Can't really remember off the top of my head, but i'm pretty sure there isin't.

Eek!

well, I went for it last night, full theme. even had some drinks and carved a halloween pumpkin first! Only started watching it at 3 am.

More to come tonight.

What did everyone think?

-Dolce

just finished watching it.

So, who all watched it? What did you think?

Well, I was going to do an official review, but realize I have no idea how to approach this genre, so i'll just warn everyone not to proceed any further into my post if they haven't seen it and don't want to read *spoilers*.

Okay, I was scared out of my BRAINS until she actually saw the witch covent. it was all downhill from there, and I thought the resolution was a bit shotty. That first killling was just grotesque, but right away Argento did such a good job slowing down and focusing on actions in a way that just made them seem, well, so creepy. Like in the airport when a woman walks through the sliding doors. It just adds this freakish sense of movement to everything. Clothes, rustling in the wind, ballet moves, anything. And that worked very well. as you mentioned before Makeshift, he really films as though working off a pallette. Ultimately that was the HIGHLIGHT of the film by far. It really was beautiful, and there were sceens that I could just guess he envisioned as still-frames. The electric peacock was really intense. The hallways she walks through, the swimming pool. EVERYTHING.

His real love was in blending the vision and sound. The soundtrack was perfect. the way i'd expect horror soundtracks to be. It was great because I don't think horror film music should be outright abrasive. Its supposed to have this *faint* feeling of memory and comfort...gone desperately wrong. and the music box tinkering bells really were out of a little girls jewelry case. Then there would just be these unsettling instruments that would roll in and out. Scared the hell out of me.

I'll be honest and say Argento could have just as easily done koyaanisqatsi, and I mean that as a complement. Most of his tension building came from the actual treament of space and sound (counting footsteps, etc). The plot was a bit weak, and so the first half, while Argento wasn't introducing too much information, and was just drawing out small over-heard words and sounds, he was at his strongest. The second half, you could tell, he just needed to *wrap things up.* And when everything is just blowing up as she runs around in the end, that's also his weakest point visually and in terms of sound.

Really stunning to look and listen too. I was REALLY freaked out and kept, don't laugh, pulling the covers up to shield my eyes when things got a bit gory, but I do realize the gore and the *overtell* is actually what killed the suspense. when the guy is getting eaten by his dog I was far less frightened than a few minutes before when the dog was freaking out and barking like mad.

I think that's a personal preference since i tend to lead towards suspense/thrillers over raw action sequences when i watch movies. I can only compare it to the slim few other horror films I've seen (I know what you did last summer, scream, monkey shines) and I must say I liked Argento infinately better. But the ending was a teeny bit of a let down.

B

-Dolce

I spent 3.33 canadian dollars on this and 2.75 canadian dollars went to waste.

What i enjoyed
soundtrack
all scenes not having to deal with the horror
an intriguing story

What sucked
every horror scene
editing
sometimes, things happened for the sake of happening

I'm resigning to the fact that I'm just not a horror person .. they hardly ever impress me.

Baba,

Don't fret. Your not the only one. This movie was horrid beyond imagination.

Where horror goes, this was just dull. There were no scares, and you were to detached from the charachters dying to care about them.

The plot must have been made by a 4 year old, it was so shoddy and generally stupid. So many holes, so dumb.

I imagine the movie would be more fun the second time around.

The whole thing, I dunno, the only scene that was even disturbing was when the dog started eating the blind man. That was decent. But overall the movie was retarted and lacked suspense or any kind of horror.

Lights on, Lights off, doesnt matter this movie was dull.

KJ

Yup .. the dog scene was a bit weird.

I also liked when she falls into those wire thingamajig.

The movie lacked one thing that i think is a key cornerstone to film making ... a structure. It operated without one.

In other news, someone asked me to watch this movie called "Story of the Flying Bird"

*spoilers*

No Scares? What about when The woman is first running through the woods, or when they're being looked at from above in the swimming pool? I think that the "scares" had to do with the fact Argento merged the eye of the camera with the uncomfortable gaze of someone intending to do harm. I agree with you guys that the weakest part of the film was the actualy storyline/climax, but that isn't to say I wasn't completely spooked by the hallways she discovers behind the iris.

I don't know mauch about horror, and even less about Italian horror, but I do know Italian film tends to have its strength and visual exploration. Bicycle theives is more about just wondering through the underbelly of Rome than anything else. I think Argento did excellently when that's what he focused on, the two women trying to figure vague stuff out. Its only at the end when he has to wrap it all up and provide more specific content that he falters. I wish he had left it equally as vague as the rest of it, and that there hadn't been official closure at the end. Then I would have been really spooked. I could say right now that it would have been best of the psychiatrist expert on witchcraft had emphasized that people who believed in witchcraft were paranoid delusional, instead of resorting to some easy *witches are evil* type resolution. That way the more she found out and believed there were witches, the more people could just write her off as being insane. It adds a level of frustration and a Cassandra complex. Maybe she gets escorted to an insane asylum at the end, and the ballet school keeps right on functioning. The viewer never learns if there were witches or not, and are left unsure of if people will suffer similar fates in the future.

Anyways, I give it much more value as a work than perhaps you guy do, but I clearly haven't seen as much of this stuff as you guys have.

-Dolce

Oooooh yes. Kudos to that though.

I did enjoy when she looked through the window and there was a white shirt hanging .. her reflection mixed with the shirt, making it look like her actually wearing it ... i've always been a fan of good imagery.

But Dolce, none of it scared me though .. ok, the glass through the woman's face made me quench ... but thats mainly cause i like to push the pain on myself .. I still await a horror that terrifies me.

Yeah, as I mentioned above, the "horror" sceens are what were least freaky to me. They are overshow. I just cringe and cover my eyes and get squeemish, but I'm not genuinely scared. I was much more scared always in the moments Leading up to the actual deaths, were people are running around and there is just a hand flashing quickly or weird lights. His tension building when that butter knifeish thing went through the door and slowly started coming up to undo the lock was really quite frightening and stressful for me (again good sound effects and excellent timing). I think it shows finesse that the knife came through the crack very slowly and that it took a good couple minutes to work the lock. Some directors may have opted to have it slash through the door very quickly and have banging sounds on the other side of the door and have the woman scream. Instead it was a very demanding, creepy, quite, drawn out sceen. Very good, IMO.

But as I mentioned before, the actual flesh parts just made me cringe.

-Dolce