|Lucille Hanson|
Suspiria plays in stunning 4K at the Trylon Cinema from Sunday, October 4, through Tuesday, October 6. For tickets, showtimes, and other series information, visit trylon.org.
“WITCH!” screams the Suspiria soundtrack every now and again, startling the viewers like it’s an accusation. With its frantic drums that feel like someone is chasing you down, the low bellows that feel like they’re coming deep from inside of your brain, and the multiple instances of light, hiss-like breaths, Goblin’s score is one of the many, MANY elements of Suspiria that feel like a waking nightmare. It’s given so much life that it feels like a character in the movie.
Take the first two tracks for instance. The melodic chimes of the opening title track have a very bright, eerie tone to them that slowly start to feel more haunting when the bass strum hits and the synth starts to peddle in, eventually followed by breathy and unintelligible whispers. It fades into something funkier that reminds me in parts of House’s theme, but the whole track feels so much more sinister and off-putting. The following track “Witch” is downright terrifying. The howling of the wind, followed by aggressive drums that sound like booming footsteps of someone chasing you, the wailing vocals and the deep low note bass makes me feel like I’m running for my life. It’s one of the most anxiety-inducing horror score pieces to me, up there with “Old Maid” from Disasterpiece’s IT FOLLOWS score.
What’s so interesting about these two pieces to me is how they are executed in the movie. When listening to them on their own, they are the full complete songs as they were recorded (unless you’re listening to the bonus tracks on the 30th or 40th Anniversary Editions). In the movie however, instead of letting them play out in full, the opening scene of the movie edits them together in such a unique way that transcends these already two incredibly horrific soundtracks into something uniquely unsettling. The opening credits start with the harsh banging from “Witch” before crashing into the title track, with an opening narration that then brings back the previously mentioned harsh banging before once again crashing into the first shot of the movie.
As Jessica Harper’s character Suzy walks through the airport, she periodically looks at the exit doors. Whenever she does, the opening notes of the title track play, then cut out whenever the shot is not on those doors. The doors slide open for her, and the track plays in full. It feels less like background music and more like the lull of a siren, luring her into a candy colored nightmare. She hops into a taxi, where on top of a language barrier between her and the driver, it feels like she’s in a shouting match with the music, which is overpowering every other sound in the scene.
I find that to be a pretty common theme with the movie’s usage of the soundtrack: Every driving force in the scene is accompanied by the blaring noise of Goblin’s score. From Suzy seeing a student of the academy run through the woods, to said student’s eventual murder, the music feels like it’s pushing the scene forward rather than simply being in the background, which makes every bit more effective. In a horror movie, the lack of a threat to the characters helps the audience feel safe, and able to let their guard down. In the case of Suspiria, the score is such a good driving force for the terror in the film that when the music disappears, it feels like something is missing. There’s no place to let your guard down, because your guard is always up. There’s no music when the two students are alone in their bedroom, but when one of them senses something, and both are eventually murdered, the score is blaring, banging, and frenetic. The gruesome images are elevated by the score as everything feels so terrifying and fantastical. It’s hard to find a minute of peace when everything could easily be stripped away in an instant.
The story goes that Dario Argento played the music for Suspiria on set to get the actors in the mood. In an interview with Variety, Claudio Simonetti (Goblin’s Keyboardist) said the music we hear is not what the cast and crew heard, saying that Goblin re-composed the music after seeing a finished cut of the film. While I sometimes wonder what the cast of Suspiria heard, the band made the right call. It’s a near perfect horror score, placing you in the mood of the movie filling you with an immense amount of dread, occasionally screaming “WITCH!” at you. And like some of horror’s greatest villains, it never feels safe to come out even when it’s gone.
Works Consulted:
Todd Gilchrist, “Composer Claudio Simonetti Breaks Down His Scores For ‘Suspiria,’ ‘Deep Red’ and ‘Dawn of the Dead’ Ahead of Nationwide ‘Demons’ Tour,” Variety, October 20, 2023.
Edited by Finn Odum