Suspiria - More of a piece of visual art than a masterpiece in film

Suspiria, directed by Dario Argento, is a visual feast, but in terms of plot, I am very convinced that I can write some stories better than this. It has an extremely simple, straight-forward single plot - a girl falling into the limbo full of witches, nearly got enmeshed. Being very rich in visual and auditory effect, the film is aesthetic to the max when it comes to judging it by how Argento tried to convey the sense of horror and uncanniness. Yes, viewers will not survive even the first five minutes, as the tagline suggests that horror is present throughout the film, as it goes "The only thing more terrifying than the last five minutes of this film are the first 90", but the scare factor, is really the extreme contrast of the primary colours presented on the silver screen, or, the notorious Suspiria theme song by Goblin (thrills and shrills guaranteed), rather than the plot.

The Brilliant Use of Colour
I am not a visual art person, so do not judge me if I do not get the professional terms correct, given that the film is really an outstanding work in visual art. First, it is of course due to the above-mentioned use of primary colours. Scenes are almost always expressed in a monochrome way - not black and white, but RED, BLUE, YELLOW. Vivid, very vivid colours, particularly the red, which is the dominating colour in the whole theme. This facilitates viewers' association with blood, and this is one of the scare factor. Below are some examples:

Eerie much, uncanny much, that it leaves viewers shivering. It is some kind of beverage (red wine? I can't recall) shown in the above screenshot, but it is amazing that Argento attempted to make it looks like bloodshed. That is in fact one of the scenes that viewers can spot out the deliberate adding of peculiarity by Argento, after all, is it not queer that wine does not actually look like blood?

It is important to note that different colours convey different mood and atmosphere. Red is a warning, a foreshadowing of bloodshed, as the colour always accompanies sirens in everyday life. It gives a kind of horror that is almost disgusting, that you expect immediate danger, like how the exterior of the Ballet School is, on the whole, in red, and the red occupies full screen whenever the wall is shot. In the first ten minutes of the film, almost all scenes are in red, including the brutal murder scene that is notorious for being extremely graphical. Blue is usually seen in scenes at night, or midnight. Tension is created when the blue is employed, as in the scenes that the characters are in covert - in the attic, et cetera. Yellow cannot always be spotted out, but it is again the eerie sense that it conveys that matters. After all, when primary colours are used solely in one scene, the vividness can possibly tell many stories and feelings and atmosphere, as in real life, rarely can we visualise such bold colours.

Colours are not the SOLE scare factor. Precisely speaking, colours are not the only element that makes the film a piece of visual art. Floral patterns, geometric patterns, et cetera, are ABUNDANT in an array of scenes.

I personally see no scare factors in the employment of these patterns, but it adds to the exuberance of the visual effects. To be frank, none of the horror films I have seen contains rich visual elements as Suspiria does, and this is one reason why I appreciate this film so highly. Seeing this film is as if visiting an art gallery exhibiting paintings, yet the paintings exhibited are constrained in the theme "Graphical Horror". Aesthetically, the film is excellent. It is purely beautiful.

Theme song is a recurring nightmare!
It is guaranteed that the theme song lingers on for days in your brain. Brainwash, almost indoctrination, the nightmare of the eerie (sorry for the running out of vocabulary) musical piece replays and replays and replays... No way can you be rid of it! The theme song, scary as it is, is certainly a strong scare factor. I am only a dilettante in music, so I am not going to comment on the music, let alone judging how the music is composed in order to give it the frightening effect. This piece is constantly played in the film, so when the song is played, the viewers would sense the uncanniness, and thus Argento is again successful in scaring viewers off. At a point, the music accelerates, and tension and suspense is built up, especially in the final scene in which the protagonist tries to sneak into the school masters' room. The music, together with the colours, forebode the danger that the protagonist is going to encounter. The acceleration of the music quickens up the pace of the plot progression.
Warning: The song is really like a constant sweep of wind... Only that it is from nowhere!

Plot is simple, too simple for 90-minute film
I expected more in a film, to be frank, not only fragments of horror knitted together in a simple plot like how Argento did. Few deliberate disgusting and uncanny scenes are left unexplained, for instance the maggots. I cannot see the purpose in plot of employing this, yet, it is essential, at least in my opinion, for the things happened and presented in the film to be well explained and have great significance. Right now, the maggots seem redundant. Yet, the film is good I must say, but can be better. For a horror film to excel, it must be rich visual-wise, symbol-wise, and plot-wise. The theme is scary and frightening, but just graphically, which it leaves no thrills in me after I watching it. I classify horror in two types - first is the visual ones as presented in Suspiria, next is the psychological ones as presented in films like Ju-On, Repulsion, et cetera. Personally I feel like the second type of horror stays in my mind longer and it haunts me for a longer period, rather than the graphical ones. That is the flaw of Suspiria. It only gives me thrill when I view the screenshots now.

In terms of the storyline, it can be considered a very simple tale - an innocent girl meeting witchcraft. It is driven by supernatural elements only, which to me is the type that is rather unconvincing, as for films like The Shining, human sanity also plays a part, so it is closer to reality. I am not criticising supernatural films as they are, some of them are superb and brilliant, but only Suspiria is rather superficial in examining the power of supernatural force to human beings; it is conveyed as only frightening, nothing else.

All in all, Suspiria is slightly overrated. It is excellent as it is beautiful like a picture in an exhibition, but it is not a perfect story to tell. There is a difference. If only the two could become complementary in the film.