
In October I abandon my regular queue of movies and TV shows on Netflix and move all of the horror films I haven't seen yet to the top. I just finished one last night, a 1977 Italian film called Suspiria. I learned about it through Apartment Therapy, when they were commenting on the vivid interiors displayed in the film.
It looked pretty freaky, and seems to rank favorably on the scariest films lists I've read, so I took it to Fresno last weekend so I wouldn't have to watch it alone. Adam didn't particularly want to see it, and as if in protective defiance, his computer wouldn't read the disc to save him from having nightmares. So I took it home and watched it over the week, falling asleep twice, but not failing to be at least marginally creeped out.
The plot follows a weird American dancer going to a prestigious dance school in Germany that turns out to be run by a coven of witches. There are some brutal murders set to an even more brutal soundtrack by an Italian rock band named Goblin. According to wiki, the soundtrack is considered a "masterpiece", has been used in a number of Hoong Kong films, and has been sampled by the likes of Ghostface Killah. It sounds like people that want to scare and murder you screaming over throbbing, thrashing background music.
The thing that stands out the most besides the soundtrack was the creepy seventies actors and the gross-out killings, which looked pretty fake, especially with the technicolor blood. It was still a pretty fun watch for anyone who likes scary movies. I'm not so into the gory ones, but this being way old school made it more camp than sick.

