On Undying Love: How Suspiria Bewitched Me
Dearest Suspiria,
Happy Valentine’s Day! From the moment I saw your neon fairy tale fever dream, I knew you would hold my still-beating heart in your black-gloved hands for the rest of eternity. You are a supernatural murder mystery, a baneful magic prog rock incantation, and a dive into the most electric parts of the rainbow, all at once. How could you not win my heart? I still remember the day I first met you. I caught your last minute or two on television; as I listened to the pounding score and the screams that echoed over the end credits, as the flaming colors filled my rapturous eyes, I fell in love. Luckily for me, you played again immediately afterward, so I sat in front of the TV, utterly enthralled by what I was seeing and hearing and feeling. I’ve watched you countless times since then, Suspiria, but I will never forget what it was like to meet my true love that day.
You are the most beautiful movie I have ever seen, and what better time to celebrate beauty than Valentine’s Day? Thank you, Suspiria, for your lavish colors and experimental camerawork, for your luxurious production design, for your love of light and darkness in equal measure. Thank you for expanding my view of what horror can be and do; thank you for making my world a more colorful and terrifying place. They always say not to get a tattoo of your beloved—it’s a jinx, they say; a curse—but you and I both know that “bad luck isn't brought by broken mirrors, but by broken minds.” Nothing could come between us! So now I have you tattooed on my skin, a permanent reminder of how deeply you’ve penetrated my psyche, of how much joy you bring me.
Happy Valentine’s Day, Suspiria. Thank you for always being there when I need to remember that there is boundless life and creativity in the world. Thank you for showing me something different every time I watch you. Thank you for being so daring, so unabashedly you, in a world where we need all the beautiful, daring films we can get. Thank you for belonging to me in such a unique, personal way, while also belonging to countless other horror fans who see you the way I see you: as a masterpiece. As a spell. As a love letter to the joy and terror and beauty that cinema—horror cinema, especially—can create.
With my undying love,
Jessica Scott