By Carolina Carmo
“This is not the new one, don’t worry,” Claudio Simonetti assures the audience as his band gears up in front of a pull-down off-white theater screen.
This year marks the forty-fifth anniversary of Dario Argento’s “Suspiria” for which Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin is embarking on a tour playing their original soundtrack live in its entirety during screenings, including a showing at D.C.’s Howard Theater on Nov. 14. The film follows Suzy, an American ballet student in Germany, who gets involved in a nightmarish horror plot at her dance school. Completely bathed in neon and scored by Goblin’s electrifying, tumultuous progressive rock, Suzy delves deeper and deeper into investigating the inexplicable throughout the 100-minute runtime.
The original movie reads as the definition of campy horror: the obvious soundstages, awkward acting, fake blood that resembles acrylic paint, cheesy special effects. It maintains its aesthetic throughout and overachieves in the extravagance of it all.
At this screening, though, the music was the highlight. I never considered how much of a film’s sound comes from the world within the film versus the one outside. The standout moments were when the movie’s diegetic sound interacted with the live soundtrack. How the ballet instructor’s footsteps echoed over the keyboard-heavy theme, or the classical piano melody the characters danced to mixed with heavy bass and cymbals. It was a chaotic meshing of sounds. The music clashing with the storyline, competing for my attention and enhancing my viewing of this cult classic to an exciting new level.
Listening to a live performance of the iconic soundtrack created an immersive experience beyond that of watching the movie in a regular theater. It was a deeper dive into the world of the “Suspiria” to the point where I needed reminding I was actually sitting at the Howard and not in a German ballet academy horror-house. I was brought back to my seat in the moments where the audience cheered for Goblin at the end of a big number, when the woman next to me sneezed four times in a row, and–my personal favorite– when the drummer and bassist improvised the riff from Michael Jackson’s “Bad” during a scene in the last act.
There’s not much more that needs to be said about the visuals of “Suspiria”; the colors and the framing contrast with the shadows beautifully. The still shot of a porcelain sink filling up with sticky wine as Suzy pours it down the drain is one of the most beautiful and simplistic few seconds of the film. Director Dario Argento set the precedent for oversaturated neon in the genre, leaving just enough room for Goblin’s score to settle in and elevate the horror.
The music stands its own against the dramatized production of the movie, so well fitting the mood of “Suspiria”. There’s something about how Goblin is able to make the most unremarkable sounds feel terrifying. Their score is the sort of disconcerting music I would never listen to on my own but I’ll remember their meticulous playing with diegetic sound from now on when I watch horror flicks, excruciatingly aware that no one can do it just like them.
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