Suspiria (1977 film)

Suspiria is a 1977 Italian supernatural horror film directed by Dario Argento, who wrote the screenplay with Daria Nicolodi. It follows Suzy Bannion, an American ballet student played by Jessica Harper, who transfers to a prestigious dance academy in Freiburg, West Germany, and comes to realise after a series of murders that the school is a front for a coven of witches. The film is the first part of the trilogy Argento calls The Three Mothers, followed by Inferno (1980) and The Mother of Tears (2007), and its title and concept draw in part on Thomas De Quincey's 1845 essay Suspiria de Profundis. Critics have singled out its saturated colour, its stylised visual design and its score by Argento and the progressive rock band Goblin. It received two Saturn Award nominations, for Joan Bennett as best supporting actress and for a DVD classic film release, and it is regarded as an influential work of the horror genre that later inspired a 2018 film of the same title directed by Luca Guadagnino.