Too Scary; Didn't Watch - Bonus Episode: SUSPIRIA

Episode Date: May 31, 2021

For our last bonus episode of May we are recapping Dario Argento's Suspiria!  Follow the show: @TSDWpodcast on Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram. Check out our Patreon for bonus episodes and additional content! Rate Too Scary; Didn’t Watch 5 Stars on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review for Emily, Henley, and Sammy. Advertise on Too Scary; Didn't Watch via Gumball.fmSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is Emily, Henley, and Sammy, and you're listening to Too Scary, Didn't Watch. Hi everyone, welcome to Too Scary, Didn't Watch, bonus episode, May 2021, number two. Number two. Number number two number two i can't not think of austin powers number two anyway it's a good joke anyway anyway we're here we're here um to bring you another episode chosen by you tony heads you picked the original suspiria and um let me tell you some things about it let's say you said some things about it it came out in 1977 it was directed by dario argento you may remember from uh our episode tenebrae um it was written by dario argento and daria nicolodi who is also in tenebrae and who also just passed away last year um starring jessica harper stefania cassini joan bennett ida alita valli flavio

bucci miguel boze and udo kier and it is not available to watch on any of the normal places not on amazon not on apple not available to rent not available to buy it is available on Amazon, not on Apple, not available to rent, not available to buy. It is available on the Halloween channel and Tubi. And that's it. And so Emily was just mentioning that one of her friends just got it in 4K on DVD. And I was thinking to myself thank god that you don't have to watch it on Tubi because it has commercials

what is Tubi? I don't even know what that is. It's a streaming service I only know it because it is one of the only ads that would play Joel and I just rewatched Mad Men and so we did it on like IMDB TV on Prime so they give you commercials and one of the

only commercials that plays is for 2b and every time it comes on we would go to be because it's a very funny name and that's all i can think of in anybody i can't i've never heard of anyone watching anything on 2b so here we go yeah i don't recommend watching it on 2b if you have another way to watch it watch it it else. Because the quality wasn't great and I imagine that it in a 4K transfer looks fucking amazing. And no commercials would definitely be

better. I wasn't thrilled with having to watch it on Tubi. Maybe the Halloween channel would have been better. I don't know. How does one even access the Halloween channel? That's like DirecTV one of their channels? Yeah, I searched on my Roku and it popped up available on the Halloween channel that's like DirecTV one of their channels is the Halloween channel yeah I searched on my Roku and it popped up available on the Halloween channel and I downloaded

the Halloween channel but then I ended up watching it on Tubi I imagine the Halloween channel is just that dancing pumpkin guy like all the time yeah that's all it is yeah and then occasionally they play Suspiria and that's it that's it

I have some trivia for us And then occasionally they play Suspiria and that's it. That's it. That's it. I have some trivia for us. It has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 7.4 on IMDb, which is pretty high for IMDb. Pretty high. And a 79 on Metacritic. This made me laugh so much. I couldn't find any budget, but the box office, according to Box Office Mojo,

it made $21,000. But according to Wikipedia, it made $1.43 billion. Billion? Billion with a B? Billion with a B. Well, it's gotta be one of the two. It has got to be one of the two it's somewhere between one billion dollars and 21 000 it is somewhere in that window probably it really made me laugh quite the discrepancy there so

who's to say how much it's honestly and who's to say who's to say um much it made? Honestly, and who's to say? Who's to say? It is partially based on Thomas De Quincey's 1845 essay, Suspiria de Profundis. And it is the first of the trilogy Argento refers to as the three mothers, which also includes Inferno, which came out in 1980, and The Mother of Tears, which came out in 2007, quite a while later. Made by dario argenti still in 2007 wow okay he just took a little hiatus i'm sure he was still doing stuff in the mean i feel like he has so many movies dario argento is a real big name in horror

and specifically the giallo horror that uh we've spoken about this italian wave of horror where it's usually very um kind of murder mystery thriller usually quite detective based like it's like half murder mystery or like half horror and half like detective thriller um this one is less that suspiria is more i'd say straight horror um and his original idea for this movie was that the it's it takes place at a dance school a ballet school and his original idea was that it would accommodate young girls no older than 12 but a studio uh denied this request because a film this violent involving children would almost certainly be banned which is like yeah no shit so he raised the age limit of the girls to 20 years but uh did not rewrite the

script hence the naivete of the characters and the occasionally childlike dialogue. He also put all the doorknobs at about the same height as the actress's heads so they would have to raise their arms in order to open the doors just like children. It is very bizarre. Has he seen a 12-year-old child? Because I feel like most of them don't have to reach above their heads to open doors. I'm like literally the same height I was when I was 12. That's like when I stopped them. He's thinking of like six-year-olds.

It's such a fundamental misunderstanding to start out with. Okay, fine. Fine. They'll be older, but they're going to be like 12-year-olds in that they are tiny little dolls and... Small 12-year-olds. Not just 12-year- olds, but the smallest ones you can find.

By me, the smallest 12 year olds you can find. Why did he want to make them naive? I don't know. I think because like in a lot of horror, there's a lot of things that could be like simply

avoided by just kind of asking questions and being like wait what the fuck is going on here and so maybe it's almost like a convenience thing it's like setting the movie like in the 90s so you don't have to deal with the iphone yeah yeah i think so okay that would be my guess um uh dario argento had his cinematographer luciano tavoli watch snow white and the Seven Dwarves to model the color scheme of that film for this one. Cool. So it's a very bright color palette. It's very beautiful.

Again, Emily was saying she's considering watching it. I think that's a great idea. It's not too scary in my opinion. Okay. It's really, really, I liked it it a lot this was my first time watching it which um i've been meaning to watch it for literally like 15 years and i'm very happy that i finally did you just needed tony heads to tell you to do it just needed that push what would i I do without my freaking Tony heads?

And again, the soundtrack is composed by Goblin, the same band that did Tenebrae, which the soundtrack was composed by Goblins. That's really what I thought you were gonna say a goblin score wow and it's so good and so is the score for Tenebrae the music in these films is really really great

and apparently Dario Argento played it a full blast on set to unnerve the actors and elicit a truly scared performance. Just blasting music at them. And that I'll one of the other main things about this movie is that it is entirely dubbed. They did not record anything on set. And it is very bizarre. It's it's like watch watch it makes it feel like

the room like hi doggie oh hi johnny you're my favorite customer it like feels like that the whole time why interesting okay it's very bizarre um and it takes place in Germany, but everyone it takes place in Germany. The main character is American. And but everyone always says ciao to each other because Dario Argento is Italian, but nobody in the movie is Italian. Oh, interesting. It really made me laugh. What language are they speaking in the movie? English.

They do speak. So it's all dubbed in English. Yeah. And most of the performances you can tell are also in English. They do speak. So it's all dubbed in English. Yeah. And most of the performances you can tell are also in English. Like it's almost matching up perfectly. But some people aren't. There's one person who's speaking German and it's just like completely. I mean, not obviously not matching at all. Interesting. Yeah. I personally hate dubbing, so I was pretty upset to see that this was the case. And I at first was like, no, no, no, we're watching the dubbed version.

How do we not do this? And then was like, oh, this is literally the only version. But I got used to it, and then it kind of became, I grew fond of it in a way. So, oh, yeah, something about the dubbing so jessica harper who plays the main character said because sound was rarely recorded during shooting she said it was strange to be in the middle of shooting a scene and hearing the background sound of a stage hand hammering away on set and like another part of the set like people could would just like do whatever the fuck they wanted like didn't need to be quiet on set. Like that's so weird, distracting and weird for the actors.

So the whole thing was dubbed, including like all the background and everything. Yeah, that's wild. Like what a weird choice to make. Is it so he could be blasting goblins the whole time? I think so. That would be extremely disorienting. To be fair, I feel like everyone's performances in this are amazing. I loved everybody in it so much. I can't choose a favorite performance. I mean, they're a little over the top and I don't know if I'm offending

anyone by comparing it to Room, but I really felt like part of it was like, oh, The Room, not Room. it to Room, but I really felt like part of it was like, oh, The Room, not Room. Yeah, not the movie starring Brie Larson. Not the very sad one with Brie Larson. The Tommy Wiseau film, The Room. I thought you meant the Brie Larson movie too for like a split second when you said that.

And I was like, let me put those pieces together. I told you guys that I met Tommy Wiseau once and auditioned for him. Have I told that story? Oh my god, no, tell it right now. To hear the rest of this episode, head on over to patreon.com slash TSDW podcast and join us in Tony fucking Collette's inner circle. Otherwise, we will see you here on Wednesday with your regularly scheduled programming. Talk to you then. Bye.