Suspiria

Suspiria is the title of two connected feature films: Dario Argento’s 1977 Italian supernatural horror film and Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 English-language remake.

Suspiria is the title of two connected feature films: Dario Argento’s 1977 Italian supernatural horror film and Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 English-language remake. Both centre on a young woman who enters a prestigious dance academy and uncovers witchcraft and violence within it. The 1977 film is commonly associated with Argento’s Mother trilogy, while the 2018 film reinterprets the story for a new generation.

1977 film

The original Suspiria is a 1977 Italian supernatural horror film directed by Dario Argento, co-written with Daria Nicolodi. It stars Jessica Harper as an American ballet student who arrives at a prestigious European dance academy and discovers that it hides something sinister.

2018 remake

The 2018 Suspiria is a supernatural horror film directed by Luca Guadagnino from a screenplay by David Kajganich. It reinterprets the story with Dakota Johnson as an American dancer in Berlin who becomes entangled with a coven of witches.

Title and literary source

Both films draw their title from Thomas De Quincey’s 1845 essay collection Suspiria de Profundis, which is also cited as a partial inspiration for the 1977 film.

Franchise context

The 1977 film is widely described as the first part of Argento’s Mother trilogy, followed by Inferno (1980) and The Mother of Tears (2007).