The 2018 remake of the classic 70s horror film is somehow better than the original

In Argento’s original version, the dance school seemed almost like an incidental setting, little more than a place to provide Argento with interesting photographs and dance clothes. In Guadagnino’s new edition, dance becomes the central method in which magicians use magic. In the most unforgettable scene in the movieSwinton’s character pinches Susie’s hands and feet, casting a kind of magic on her body. When Susie begins to dance, a woman on the floor beneath her is horribly and supernaturally moved by her movements. The victim’s body, unprepared to dance, twists, twists, breaks, and splits. It’s a painful and horrific way to die, at the hands of the Muse of Terpsichore. Suddenly, it makes sense why witches run a ballet academy. Dancing is the best way to invoke demonic power. The dancing becomes pagan, menacing, and terrifying.

In a new twist, Guadangino’s “Suspiria” follows a character named Dr. Joseph Klemperer (Lutz Ebersdorf, actually Tilda Swinton again), a psychologist to Sarah (Mia Goth), a fellow dancer at the academy. Sarah tells Dr. Klemperer that her school is controlled by witches, inspiring him to investigate any wrongdoing. Dr. Klemperer uncovers the identity of the entire group, but actually finds something more important on a personal level: the fate of his wife, who died in the Holocaust. He is also a survivor and is devastated by survivor’s guilt, feeling that he did not do enough to stem the tide of fascism. This is a symbol of Germany’s ongoing reckoning with its wartime past, and how it relates directly to the unrest of 1977. Not to mention that the current unrest seems to be enabling the regrowth of evil right under the noses of German citizens.

Evil, as the new “Suspiria” says, is an active choice, and we can fight it, or be drawn into its grotesqueries. We can have power, but it is useless unless we use it correctly. And that’s what the new thriller examines: the uses and abuses of political power. It can be used for good and evil, or a combination of the two, but when abused it leaves cultural scars.