Suspira (Suspiria) (translated)

Suspiria is a 1977 Italian horror movie helmed by Dario Argento, who also shaped the script together with his then-partner Daria Nicolodi, loosely drawing on Thomas De Quincey's nineteenth-century essay about mysterious feminine powers. It follows Suzy Bannion, an American newcomer who enrolls at an elite dance conservatory in Germany, only to sense something deeply wrong once fellow pupils start vanishing and dying in gruesome ways. Digging deeper, she uncovers that the institution secretly shelters a coven of ancient witches.

The picture opens Argento's so-called Mothers cycle, continued later by Inferno and The Mother of Tears. Its hallucinatory color palette, unsettling architecture and pounding Goblin soundtrack turned it into one of the genre's most admired achievements, earning two Saturn Award nominations and lasting cult status decades after release, plus a 2018 remake led by Luca Guadagnino. Udo Kier and Renato Scarpa also appear among the cast.