Oz Perkins knows horror movies. The director behind Longlegs and The Monkey is about to release his sixth feature, Keeper, and he’s already hard at work on his seventh, The Young People.
So, what does Perkins watch when he wants to take in a good horror movie? The writer, director, and actor recently programmed a 24-hour horror movie marathon in a feature for The AV Club, and in between discussing classics like Dracula and modern successes like It Follows, he also recommended a fascinating and divisive horror remake.
Released in 2018, Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria is a remake of Dario Argento’s 1977 classic of the same name. Like the original film, it’s the story of a young dancer (played in this case by Dakota Johnson) who’s admitted to a very exclusive, prestigious dance academy in Germany. And like the original film, the academy is secretly run by a coven of witches who are part of a world-ruling cabal that’s been behind the scenes for centuries.
Beyond that, though, Guadagnino’s film takes plenty of liberties, digging into the political climate in Germany in the 1970s, the infighting of the witches as they attempt to choose a new leader, and of course, the true nature of the power lurking within the academy. It’s a daring movie, given the original Suspiria‘s reputation as a horror classic, and that’s exactly what Perkins likes about it.
“I just love the vibe of that movie,” Perkins explained. “You feel like you’re in that school with those girls and the fecklessness with which the witches operate is great, and it has a super crazy weird ending when the demon, the witch, or whatever you want to call it, shreds everybody in that slow-motion scene where everybody just explodes into these blood bombs. So profane and gnarly, I really love the Suspiria remake.”
Perkins is not alone in his assessment. Though it certainly divided horror fans upon release back in 2018, Guadagnino’s Suspiria succeeds because of how far it’s willing to go with the concepts laid out in Argento’s film, and how much it’s willing to subvert them. While Argento’s movie is a dark Technicolor fairy tale, Guadagnino’s is a paranoid supernatural thriller that explodes into occult ecstasy by the end, and yet they’re both undeniably Suspiria stories. Dread Central’s Chad Collins has actually argued that the remake is so good that it strengthens the original, elevating both stories into something more.
Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria is now streaming on Prime Video. Oz Perkins‘ Keeper is in theaters November 14.
Categorized: News
