Luca Guadagnino Champions Suspiria As A Labor Of Love, But It’s Definitely Not A Remake

You’d have to cast your mind back to March of 2017 to remember the moment when Luca Guadagnino announced that filming had wrapped on Suspiria, a modern reinvention of Dario Argento’s Italian slasher. So what gives?

As the horror flick continues to simmer on the brink of release, Guadagnino spoke to Criterion (via Bloody Disgusting) about Suspiria‘s prolonged spell in post, and why he considers it to be a “very special film.” And though it was originally slated to arrive in 2017, judging by this latest status report – one in which the Italian filmmaker reveals that he still has three months to wrap things up – Suspiria may slip into 2018 after all.

I have three months until I finish it. It’s a very special film, and I’m proud of it. I wonder all the time how people will react to it, being that it is based on a masterpiece. I often find myself in the position of saying ‘Oh, it’s ridiculous!’ when I hear stories that they want to remake a movie like 8½, so I don’t know if I’m going to be served the same dish. But I can say that my Suspiria is a very personal film; it’s like oxygen to me. When I saw the original movie thirty-two years ago, the emotion I felt was so strong, so mind-blowing, and so important to my upbringing. I wanted to investigate the experience I had watching that film.

Starring Dakota Johnson, Chloë Grace Moretz and Tilda Swinton, Luca Guadagnino first conceived his slasher flick back in 2015, and though it may be easy to label this labor of love as yet another horror remake, Guadagnino stressed to Allocine (again, via Bloody Disgusting) that he’s distanced himself from the word ‘remake’:

It’s inspired by the same story, but it goes in different directions, it explores other reasons. It’s semantics, of course, but I think people really have to understand that this is not a remake, because the word “remake” gives the impression that we want to erase the original, and the opposite is what we tried to do.

Think of it more as a modern reimagining, then, with Jessica Harper’s ballet student returning for a cameo. Still no mention of a release date for Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria, but you’ll know as soon as we do.