Suspira reviews: What are critics saying about the Tilda Swinton horror movie?

2018 has been a good year for horror fans.

With stalwart films like Halloween receiving a new lease on life and especially creepy films like The Nun getting top billing, horror is in vogue.

Suspiria is one of the many additions to this year’s horror canon.

The horror remake premiered at the Venice Film Festival and has screened at festivals from Amsterdam to New York City.

Here’s what critics had to say about the 2018 remake of the 1977 original dance horror movie.

Suspiria holds an approval rating of 69 on Rotten Tomatoes, indicating mixed but positive reviews.

The critics’ consensus reads: “Suspiria attacks heady themes with garish vigour, offering a viewing experience that’s daringly confrontational – and definitely not for everyone.”

Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com gave it three out of four stars.

She wrote: “You will stagger out of the theatre wondering what exactly you just saw, but you will not easily forget it.”

Perfectly embodying a mixed-but-positive sentiment was Anne Cohen of Refinery29.

She wrote: “Things fall apart towards the end… Still, it’s an astonishing creative effort, imbued with awe for the infinite possibilities of the feminine.”

Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times wrote: “There is meaning in this mutilation and, if you don’t regard the classics as sacrosanct, a grim, brooding sort of pleasure.”

Unhappy with the movie was Manohla Dargis of the New York Times.

Dargis wrote: “As the first hour of Suspiria grinds into the second and beyond (the movie runs 152 minutes), it grows ever more distended and yet more hollow.”

Leaning much more towards the positive end of the spectrum was Peter Travers of Rolling Stone.

He wrote: “Luca Guadagnino’s re-imagining of Dario Argento’s 1977 horror classic about a dance academy run by witches is a maddening mess-all that subtext- and also totally mesmerizing.”

Katie Rife for AV Club was equally enthusiastic, writing: “A two-and-a-half-hour wallow in the primal recesses of the human psyche that’s alternately calculatedly subdued and completely… crazy.”

Writing for TIME Magazine, Stephanie Zachareck was not impressed.

She wrote: “This new Suspiria is bland, grisly, boring and silly.

“There is nothing poetic or erotic about it.”

Suspiria is out in UK cinemas November 16, 2018.