Blurbing For The Weekend 12/27/24

My rating scale for stuff on streaming is explained here.

I think I tried to watch the original Suspiria at some point in the ‘00s, but the sound must have been down or I was too close to sleep or both, because all I remembered was some dramatic death sequences, bright colors and zero dialogue or plot. When I saw the remake, I had no idea how much was or wasn’t taken from the original aside from a young female lead who’s new in town. But I finally watched Dario Argento’s most famous giallo last week, wide awake and captions on, and I now totally understand why it’s the bee’s knees. Suspiria is a cavalcade of eerie visuals that mix otherworldly horror with an all-too tactile sense of violence. Why haven’t more films played with the discomfort of a face pressed against glass? Shouldn’t CGI enhance the possibilities with color? How can the movie’s soundtrack still be exceptionally cacophonous for a horror film almost fifty years later? (It‘s so wild sometimes everybody on screen stands still and listens to it!) I don’t necessarily think more movies should be like Suspiria, with its rushed climax and underwritten everything, but that I’m surprised how few of its exceptional qualities have been normalized. FIVE BAGS OF POPCORN.

Apparently, Luca Guadagnino conceived of his 2018 remake of Suspiria as an operatic tribute to the original film. Meanwhile, screenwriter David Kajganich - not a fan of Argento, or horror in general - only took the gig if he was allowed to ground the story in reality. It’s not exactly Bernie Taupin writing gibberish for Elton John’s “Philadelphia Freedom” because he had no interest in literally celebrating Billie Jean King’s tennis team, but it does explain why the film comes off both more critical and whimsical than the original. Kajganich lets us know what a dance academy would really be like in ‘70s Berlin, with references to Baader-Meinhof and a lot more discussion of choreography. There’s also an extended sequence about lovers torn apart during the Nazi regime, played by Jessica Harper (star of the original) and Tilda Swinton, made up like Laurence Olivier in The Boys From Brazil. Swinton actually plays three roles in the movie - the full Joe Vs The Volcano, if not the full Klumps. She’s not bad, but the only logic for the choice I can fathom is Guadagnino wanted Only Women with big roles the movie, plot be damned. 

I must confess, this straight dude doesn’t mind at all that Guadagnino tossed all the hairy chests from Argento's dance academy, or that he added so many modern dance routines. The matriarchal majesty of women thrusting their bodies in tight leotards: who am I to reject its primal power? I also don’t mind that Dakota Johnson is too damn Dakota Johnson to buy as an Ohio farmgirl of supernatural dance power (especially with Mia Goth standing right there next to her, and Chloe Grace Moretz's dramatic meltdown in the opening). Johnson’s where’s-my-iphone face doesn’t keep her from thrusting, at least. Whether she sells the film’s climax or not, there’s plenty of bloody bodies writhing in erotic agony to keep you entertained either way. I can’t call the original a popcorn classic until I throw it on again (which I probably will), but I’ve watched the new one enough to say…POPCORN CLASSIC.

It had been a long time since I watched 1974’s Black Christmas or its 2006 remake, but I remembered enough to know the 2019 version, directed by Sophia Takal (the woman who’d rather not be honeymooning with Joe Swanberg in VHS), throws everything away except the premise. Sorority sisters are still being dispatched by a masked menace, but where the earlier films were set at the beginning of Christmas break, this one lets us see one last class and one last party, so we can better appreciate the toxic male campus culture the progressive, unconditionally supportive…sorority sisters…are taking on, with petitions and musical parodies directed towards misogynist professors and date rapists. 

This would all be well and good if Takal (and co-writer April Wolfe) had any interest in making an entertaining subversion of the slasher, or weren't beholden to the form. If they’re paying tribute to euro-thrillers with long stretches of nothing, followed by sudden zooms and cutaways from violence, they have no taste for them. It may be proudly feminist paper, but the dialogue and characterization is still paper-thin. Only Cary Elwes, as the transparently evil professor, is having any fun. Subversion in cinema is having your cake and eating it too, not proudly announcing this isn’t your daddy’s cake and then serving stale crackers. Ironically, this Black Christmas might be most enjoyed by people who want proof movies are worse today “because woke.” THREE BAGS OF POPCORN.

I rewatched the 2006 remake out of due diligence and because I hadn't seen it since DVD. While it’s certainly factory product, director Glen Morgan (an original X-Files writer who co-created the Final Destination franchise) has fun with the stabbings and chasing and sick backstory behind the dispatching of a handful of sorority sisters waiting for rides home. Oddly enough, the women here are no less assertive or capable than the cast of the 2019 film, if less vocal about girl power. The movie has almost nothing to do with college, “sorority” just being a good explanation for why a group of young women live together in a building with a past (it also allows the original's Andrea Martin to be their house mother). I had to watch it on Tubi, and those ads were a real vibe-killer. But I can still give it FOUR BAGS OF POPCORN.

I also put on the original Black Christmas (which turned fifty this year!) for the first time since DVD. Maybe VHS. Having done so, I’d like to ask Takal and Wolfe what they did and didn’t like about it (assuming they even saw it). The women are considerably more distinct characters in this film than any of the others, though admittedly Margot Kidder, Andrea Martin and Olivia Hussey bring plenty of distinction to the table. Where the new movie wants applause for referencing a diva cup, Kidder’s Barb is so transgressive she serves children alcohol, tricks a cop into writing “fellatio” after demanding his attention towards their harassment, and offends her sisters with a rape joke. Final girl Hussey (not hiding her British accent) is no virgin, with the movie centered on her unflinching desire to get an abortion, even as boyfriend Keir Dullea goes apeshit. The psychotic prank calls they receive are more grotesque displays of sexual violence than anything in the remakes, Kidder’s reaction more likely to get an audience whooping in sisterly pride than anything in the 2019 movie. When the boozy house mother tries to keep a dad from seeing his daughter’s nude poster, young hipsters might wonder when sororities stopped being so cool.

The climax does require someone to both avoid leaving a house and then forget how to open a door, but, for all the embarrassment of why she’s hiding in the basement, the sequence conveys her uncertainty as to whether she's dealing with a random spree killer, or just the usual male violence and possessiveness a woman can expect from life. The closing shot is one of the most subtly shocking I’ve ever seen, quietly suggesting the victims forgotten and evils unexamined once the men in power have a plausible scapegoat for a tragedy. To be fair, I barely remembered any of this from whenever I saw it last (possibly around the time I half-saw Suspiria). Maybe Takal and Wolfe took it as retrograde on faith, or decided they wanted something more empowering than scary. FIVE BAGS OF POPCORN.

Oh, can we just note that Bob Clark somehow directed Black Christmas and A Christmas Story? And that he not just directed two very different Christmas classics, but also Porky's, Porky's II: The Next Day, Baby Geniuses and Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2? Just a criminally unpredictable career.

All suggestions and such should be shot over to anthonyisright at gmail dot com.