suspiria Tagged Articles at Cinematical

"Listen to this!" A friend pressed the ringer on his BlackBerry, and it played the theme to The Omen, "Ave Satani" by Jerry Goldsmith, which he'd assigned to a particularly heinous client of his. Another friend had, for a time, assigned a relative the unforgettable score from Halloween as composed by writer/director John Carpenter himself. And I'm sure somewhere there is someone with the theme from The Exorcist, which was written by Mike Oldfield.

Ringtones aside, there's no denying that a deft soundtrack or score can ratchet up the tension in any movie, especially one that uses droning noises and other disturbing, almost subliminal effects that can slip past the viewer and straight into our brain. Some of my favorite spooky soundtracks sure to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end include the above, naturally, but there are a few that need some love as well.

Read the rest at Horror Squad!

Well, since it seems that the very few out there who still respect what I have to say about movies, and horror movies in particular, either didn't read or didn't mind my mild admission that I only like Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, I feel a little bolder about bringing another piece of quasi-blasphemy to light: at this time last year, I hadn't seen Dario Argento's treasured Suspiria, and when I eventually did, I was distinctly underwhelmed. Perhaps it was too dated, perhaps I was too jaded, but I was relegated to sitting back and just plain 'respecting' another classic of the genre.

That makes me no more oblivious to the fact that it's sacred enough that a remake announcement is cause for cringing. Making matters a little less cringe-inducing, though (in my opinion), is Bloody Disgusting's confirmation that Natalie Portman is to star in the 2010 incarnation. She's smart, she's sexy... in short, this Oscar nominee could wander curiously around the halls of my eerie ballet academy any day.

However, I still find the reports that David Gordon Green is attached to direct a little hard to swallow; I'm still coping with the fact that he directed the very funny and relatively mainstream Pineapple Express. Maybe a why-not stance would be most fitting at the moment.

Suspiria remake? Portman starring? What do you think?

I was just about to eat lunch when ComingSoon.net directed me to this super violent and gory clip from Mother of Tears, the latest flick from Italian horror legend Dario Argento. Now I've lost my appetite. Before you click on the link (which brings you to an exclusive from ShockTillYouDrop.com), be warned: you may lose your lunch or have some serious nightmares or both. Also, it's likely not very safe to watch the video at work.

The film is the final installment in Argento's The Three Mothers trilogy, which also includes the horror classics Suspiria and Inferno. Mother of Tears stars the filmmaker's goth-sexy daughter, Asia Argento (unfortunately best known in the States as Vin Diesel's co-star in xXx), as an American studying abroad at the fictional Museum of Ancient Art in Rome. She unearths a sort of Pandora's box-like urn that unleashes a witch known as the Mother of Tears and the apocalyptic chaos that comes with her.

Reviewing from the Toronto Film Festival last fall, Cinematical horror hound Scott Weinberg called the film, "the master's best flick since ... hell, since at least the mid-'80s ... fans of the old-school Argento splatter-fests will find a handful of truly gruesome sequences here, while those who are on the lookout for a bleak yet tongue-in-cheek tale of the apocalypse will most likely appreciate what's in Tears." Now we can see what Scott meant by "truly gruesome."

Mother of Tears opens in limited release this Friday.

I really don't know what to say. I saw All the Real Girls. I dug it. However, I could also see how it's an indie movie for indie lovers -- slow, somber, meandering. I haven't gotten to see Snow Angels yet, but that's another dramatic film, and quite heart-wrenching. Then there's Seth Rogen's Pineapple Express, and now... SUSPIRIA?

Yes, in a discussion with MTV, director David Gordon Green confirms that he is involved with the upcoming Suspiria remake -- the one that was on in 2006, then off, and then on again last May. "No, it doesn't make a lick of sense," the director said, but no, he's not talking about his involvement, but rather the film: "I love it, plot holes and everything." He's written the new version, and is hoping to direct it as well.

Green says: "It's an opportunity to take all artistic excellence and be inspired by what was a low budget Italian 70's gore movie, where the art world meets the violent and supernatural." Jokingly, he also says, with his involvement it would be "some classy shiat." Maybe if he can handle a funny Rogen film, and the slow and serious, he can speed things up a little and make a great remake. But what do you think? Would a Green-helmed Suspiria remake be "classy shiat?"

For your reading pleasure...

• Remember that Suspiria remake that died a year ago? Scott Weinberg posted about screenwriter Steven Katz saying that there would probably be no remake because they can't find "a reason for the witches to be using a dance academy for their evil-doings." It looks like someone has found a way around it -- the latest word from Cannes is that Italian production house First Sun had grabbed the rights to the remake, which will be an English-language flick. Unfortunately, there's no further word on the project other than a quote about the company's excitement about the project. Apparently, there's a gothic resurgence going on.
• I really know nothing much about this next bit of news, but I had to include it because of its great Swedish name that's giving me flashbacks to Frusen Glädjé. Last year, Swedish writer Sara Kadefors released a book called Fågelbovägen 32, which is now going to be adapted into a feature film. I'm assuming that she'll be adapting the book, since the author is going to make her feature directorial debut with the movie. Fågelbovägen is psychological thriller about a woman who is in danger after she befriends another woman. Pernilla August, who played Anakin's mom in Episode I, is set to star.
• I never thought I'd type this, but Pedro Almodóvar is sort of following in the footsteps of James Cameron, and is gearing up to help put some ancient ruins on film. His production company, El Deseo has began production on a docudrama about the discovery of the ruins of an ancient Peruvian rule -- El Senor de Sipan. Jose Manuel Novoa is directing the movie, which will detail the life of the man who ruled Peru 1,700 years ago, a reign that includes "sackings, murders and intrigue" by combining dig discoveries with elaborate sets and re-creations. Sounds pretty funky to me.
  

The other day I posted a Vintage Image of the Day of Gregory Peck from the movie The Paradine Case. The woman in the photo was Alida Valli. Little did I know I'd have cause to look for photos of her again, so soon. Sadly, the Italian actress died on Saturday at age 84.

Valli's first movie, Three-Cornered Hat, was released in 1937. She made movies in Hollywood from the late 1940s to the early 1950s, as well as taking a notable role in The Third Man, then returned to Italy. Horror-film fans may remember Valli as Miss Tanner in Dario Argento's film Suspiria, or perhaps as the assistant Louise in the 1959 French thriller Eyes Without a Face. Those fans of her later character-actor work might recognize her in the above photo as Kira Argounova in Noi Vivi, the 1942 Italian adaptation of Ayn Rand's We the Living.

GreenCine Daily linked to a lovely Alida Valli tribute site, full of photos of the actress throughout the years. You have your choice of languages: French, Italian, or German. Even though I'm not much good at anything but English, I had no trouble browsing the site.

Those wonderful horror freaks over at BloodyDisgusting had a brief sit-down with screenwriter Steven Katz, and the scribe had this to say about the alleged remake of Dario Argento's Suspiria: "(It) probably will not happen at this point." Ah, but the reasons WHY are what's so entertaining: "Katz informed [BloodyDisgusting] that the biggest challenge in writing the script was finding a reason for the witches to be using a dance academy for their evil-doings."

Although I'm far from the most ravenous giallo fan under the sun, I do appreciate why most everyone digs the Argento so much. Remaking Suspiria is like you trying to replicate a dream I had last night - and you want the dream to have a cohesive plot structure and clearly delivered volleys of teen-friendly exposition. Plus, cash-grab remakes generally rely on memorable characters and recognizable plot points, and Suspiria doesn't really fit into that formula. It's just too weird to be remade. The Twitch blog sums up the issue with a stinger: "Imagine being in the script meetings for (this) remake and suddenly trying to pull the very individual vision into your perceived 'real world' or 'modern business-like approach to movies' that have a primary intent to make large amounts of cash, potentially in pursuit of bastardizing culture from other countries." Zing!

Either way, it's a remake that nobody wanted to see. Slapping together a remake of The Fog is, obviously, not all that difficult to do. But Suspiria? C'mon, that's just silly.

Xeni at BoingBoing linked to this a couple of days ago: It's a Flickr stream devoted mainly to posters from 70s era Spanish-language adult films. Also inexplicably included? The ad images for the Spanish versions of Dario Argento's Suspiria; Sex Pistols doc The Great Rock n' Roll Swindle; and Disco Fever, starring Fabian and Casey Kasem. Totally explicably included? Posters for about eight different versions of Caligula.