Dario Argento asked cinematographer Luciano Tovoli to watch Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as a color reference for Suspiria. He wanted his 1977 horror film to have the look of a psychedelic fairy tale.
Jessica Harper plays Suzy Bannion, an American ballet student who travels to a prestigious dance school in Germany and encounters witches. A narrator introduces her journey before she appears at the airport, washed in red light. The fairy-tale setup carries through to the danger waiting at the school.
Argento co-wrote the screenplay with Daria Nicolodi, who brought her own fairy-tale influences: Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, and Bluebeard.
She also shared a story her grandmother had told her about fleeing a music academy as a girl after discovering that the people running it practiced witchcraft.
