"Suzy, do you know anything about witches?"
-Sara

Suspiria was his first foray into the supernatural. It is his masterpiece. The garish primary colors, masterful camera work and a pounding score by the group Goblin create a truly nightmarish atmosphere.

Suzy Banyon (Jessica Harper), an aspiring ballet dancer from America, decides to study at a prestigious Tanzakademie in Freiburg, Germany. When she arrives, (and only Argento could make an airport seem so creepy), she takes a taxi to the school in a ferocious storm.

The first person Suzy sees when she arrives at the Academy is a girl named Pat Hingle (Susanna Javicoli), fleeing the building and running into the surrounding woods. She overhears the girl saying something but can't make out what it is. Suzy doesn't get into the school that night because the voice on the intercom isn't expecting her. She decides to spend the night in town.

Pat comes back and goes up to the room of another girl. She tells her that she's been expelled and that she's going to leave the school immediately. She also says that she's discovered a secret, but she's reluctant to tell her friend.

When she is left alone, a figure outside the window attacks Pat and stabs her repeatedly. Then the killer ties a rope around her body before dropping her through the glass floor. The shattered glass kills her friend below as well.

The next day, Suzy returns to the school and meets the faculty and the other students. They're being questioned by the police investigating the two murders. The instructors are led by Madame Blanc (Joan Bennett), and Miss Tanner (Alida Valli).

The Directress of the dance school is supposedly away. Suzy also meets the pianist named Daniel (Flavio Bucci), who happens to be blind, and befriends Sara (Stefania Casini), one of the nicer students.

On the first day of class, Suzy is walking towards the practice hall. She sees one of the cooks sitting and holding a shiny object. A glare hits her in the eyes, blinding her for a moment.

When she gets to the class, she is unable to dance or even stand up, and she faints. A doctors who attends to her tells Suzy that her condition is the result of the school's rigorous dance classes. That night, in her room she finds maggots in her hair.

Suddenly there are girls running through the halls screaming. There are maggots everywhere. A thorough search of the school by Miss Tanner turns up some rotten food in the attic.

The girls are relocated to the practice hall for the night. When the lights are turned out, Suzy and Sara hear heavy breathing coming from behind the makeshift sheets that are set up around them. Suzy tells Sara that the noises must be coming from the Directress.

Daniel is fired and thrown out of the school when his seeing-eye dog bites Madame Blanc's nephew. As he is leaving the school, the dog suddenly turns on him and rips into his neck, mutilating him.

Suzy and Sara begin to suspect something. Every night they hear the teachers' footsteps going to a part of the school that none of the students have access to. Sara tells Suzy that Pat was her friend and that she has notes that the murdered student was keeping.

When those notes disappear, Sara frantically tries to tell Suzy that their lives are in danger. But Sara is heavily medicated and can't respond. Frightened, Sara tries to leave the academy, but ends up being chased by someone trying to kill her. She falls into a room filled with barbed wire and a hand suddenly reaches out and slits her throat.

Suzy is told the next day that Sara left the school the night before on her own. Later, she finds out from the dead girl's psychiatrist that the academy was founded by a centuries-old sorceress named Helena Marcos.

One night, Suzy is alone while the faculty and students have gone to the theatre. She decides to look for the area of the school she hears footsteps going to every night. Guided by the words she heard spoken by Pat, she finds a secret passageway.

She finds Madame Blanc and Miss Tanner, and discovers that they are actually witches in the service of Helena Marcos. She sees them preparing to kill her, and in another room finds Marcos. As the zombified corpse of Sara is coming towards her with a knife, Suzy stabs Marcos with a crystal spike.

Marcos is killed, and Sara's corpse disappears. Suzy then runs through the school and outside, as the building bursts into flames and the witches all perish. She walks away in yet another thunderstorm, with a look of sheer relief on her face.

Suspiria remains Dario Argento's best known work. It was an international success. His previous film, Profondo Rosso (Deep Red), had been a big hit in Italy, but with this film, Argento wanted to advance from the "giallo" format to the magical thriller.

He says, "It was always meant to be an acid trip. I went to Germany to shoot it to accent all the expressionistic fairytale aspects." He acheived this by filming with an outmoded Technicolor stock. He also had cinematographer Luciano Tovoli watch Walt Disney cartoons to illustrate the vivid psychedelic quality he wanted.

As for the much celebrated opening, the director recalls, "I wanted the strongest impact possible. The whole point was to start Suspiria in the way a normal horror film would usually finish. That kept the audience on edge wondering what could possibly come next."

The story was based in part on Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium Eater, especially the "Three Mothers of Sighs, Darkness and Tears," and the "Snow White" fairytale. It was to be the first of a trilogy about witches spreading evil from different corners of the world.

Argento's follow-up to this, Inferno (released in 1980), concerned supernatural occurances in New York. It was not received well, and that disappointment may have discouraged the director from filming the third part of the project.

Hunter: The first murder in this movie, when Pat is killed, is the goriest and most graphic death sequence I've ever seen. She is knifed repeatedly in the chest, including once in the heart. It's astounding, and it sets the pace for a one of a kind movie experience. Suspiria is really an operatic horror film. It's not to be missed.

Jason: The reason I enjoy the movie so much is for it's recurring symbols and way intense style. Repeatedly, water, light and color are used in matching patterns. At the beginning of the movie, water is shown in the gutters of the airport, the rain coming down, Suzy sees a dam overflowing on her way to the school. Water is used constantly to wash things off. But these are done in such a way as to emphasize the element of water.

Blues and red are the dominant colors...on people's faces, walls, hallways...sometimes a green comes in, too, but all three are very vivid colors. It creates this atmosphere of un-reality, which is really fascinating. The whole effect is one of extreme style in a dream-like state...

Did you know...? During filming, Dario Argento's girlfriend, Daria, told him about her grandmother's experiences at a finishing school where "black magic" was practiced after hours. That finishing school was the inspiration for the dance academy in Suspiria