Twelfth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #9 Suspiria (2018)

 I can't believe it's been since 2018 that the new Suspiria came out.  Which, incidentally, was when I watched the original, 1997 Suspiria.  Is it a problem that I didn't remember much of the original when I watched the new one?  As it turns out, no: in broad strokes, they're much the same.  But anyone who loves the first one is going to realize that the new one is quite different.  Some spoilers ahead.

Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson) is a former Amish runaway who has come to 1977 Berlin to join the Markos Dance Company.  Despite not having much formal training, she is accepted and quickly becomes the principal dancer for the company.  The instructors are all witches, you see, and see Susie as the pure vessel they have been seeking for their ritual to resurrect (maybe?) their three goddesses/main witches.  Susie is down with that, especially since the charismatic yet intimidating Madame Blanc (the always amazing Tilda Swinton), the company's main instructor, quickly develops a relationship with the girl.  Meanwhile, other dancer Sara - who was Susie's first friend at the company - begins to think something strange is afoot in the dark rooms and tunnels beneath the dance school; she makes the acquaintance of a German psychologist, a sad man (also played by Tilda Swinton, under very good layers of makeup) who lost his wife to the Nazi camps in WWII (and this subplot needlessly complicates things) and who used to have as a patient a former dancer, paranoid and now gone missing.

This movie must have been percolating in my subconscious because now the plot seems to make much more sense as opposed to when I was watching it when my notes read "Really not sure what's going on but there seems to be a power struggle among three major witches: Markos, Blanc and an unnamed third ... I think Susie may be the third?"  The big finale scene is where all the lurid reds of the original film show up, with exploding heads and gushes of blood.  I was a big fan of the exploding heads, by the way, but my notes: "I don't know what is happening."  

Final thoughts: The new Suspiria is super weird and over-long but it has been my favorite movie of the month so far.