Luca Guadagnino is months away from finishing his version of Suspiria

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

There has long been the threat that someone was going to make a new version of Dario Argento's stylish 1977 classic SUSPIRIA, and now there is one in existence. Director Luca Guadagnino has shot his own take on the concepts presented in Argento's film and is very close to completing it.

Speaking with Criterion, Guadagnino had this to say about the project: 

I have three months until I finish it. It’s a very special film, and I’m proud of it. I wonder all the time how people will react to it, being that it is based on a masterpiece. I often find myself in the position of saying “Oh, it’s ridiculous!” when I hear stories that they want to remake a movie like 8½, so I don’t know if I’m going to be served the same dish. But I can say that my Suspiria is a very personal film; it’s like oxygen to me. When I saw the original movie thirty-two years ago, the emotion I felt was so strong, so mind-blowing, and so important to my upbringing. I wanted to investigate the experience I had watching that film.

There was never any way another filmmaker would be able to come close to replicating what Argento accomplished with the original SUSPIRIA, so it's been good to hear that Guadagnino brought a personal vision to the idea and will be taking the story in very different directions – so different that it has even been said that Guadagnino's SUSPIRIA shouldn't be called a remake.

Starring Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnson, Mia Goth, Chloë Grace Moretz, Lutz Ebersdorf, and the original SUSPIRIA's Jessica Harper, the film has the following synopsis: 

Susie Bannion, a young American woman, travels to the prestigious Markos Tanz Company in Berlin in the year 1977. She arrives just as one of the Company’s members, Patricia, has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. As Susie makes extraordinary progress under the guidance of Madame Blanc, the Company’s revolutionary artistic director, she befriends another dancer, Sara, who shares her suspicions that the Matrons, and the Company itself, may be harboring a dark and menacing secret. 

Radiohead's Thom Yorke is providing the score.