Just saw SUSPIRIA

The characters in SUSPIRIA came off as bland, but I couldn't put my finger on the exact reason. After watching it, I read that Dario Argento and Daria Nicolodi wrote them as children, until they felt forced to change their ages... and it all made sense. Luciano Tovoli's cinematography and Giuseppe Bassan's production design are great, but the plot and dialogues are too basic. Argento and Goblin's The music score is meant to make the viewer feel uneasy. Well, there's a difference between intense and overwhelming. Instead of grabbing my seat, I wanted to cover my ears.

4/10


INFERNO has mostly the same problems as its predecessor. It even follows the same major story beats. Keith Emerson's music score is tolerable in comparison, but it's not good enough to create a scary atmosphere. At times, it even feels out of place. For example, there's a scene where the tempo is so fast that you'd think the character on screen should be running, but instead she's walking.

3/10


The only memorable thing about MOTHER OF TEARS: THE 3RD MOTHER is the scene where a character repeatedly says "Mommy" in such an unintentional funny way. The previous installments didn't have that distinct style just for the sake of aesthetics. They made the setting feel like a nightmarish world, so the B-movie gore felt earned. This 2nd sequel tries to combine the over-the-top deaths with a traditional visual presentation. The result is as messy as Argento's head was when he decided to film his daughter Asia Argento in a shower scene. I know it's normal for sequels to have callbacks to the original, but you can't make a trilogy where every single installment has the exact same ending. Especially if it's an anticlimactic one.

3/10


Taking a movie known for being colorful and remaking it with a muted color palette is a good way to sum up the current state of visual media. What a relief that the tone of SUSPIRIA 2018 is bleak enough that this grey and brown palette fits (I can't say that about a lot of other modern movies, TV shows, music videos, etc.). And to be fair, there are a few moments with intense primary-colored lights. One of my first thoughts was "Why not take this opportunity to tell the story with children like it was intended?" I was disappointed to see adults again, but that's because I subconciously assumed that they would follow the same blueprints of SUSPIRIA 1977's script. I'm glad that they took the oversimplistic story in a new direction and that they wanted to add more depth to it, but I wished they hadn't focused so much on the witches, especially in flashbacks. There's nothing wrong with exploring the mythology in a supernatural movie, but this felt convoluted. The movie is only truly fascinating during the dance scenes. The combination of acting, directing, editing and choreography is quite intense.

5/10
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