Luca Guadagnino Says His New ‘Suspiria’ Movie Made Quentin Tarantino Cry

It didn’t seem possible, but after the debut of that stunning first trailer, I’m even more excited for Suspiria. If anything can elbow its way into my top five in the back-half of the year, it’s definitely going to be Luca Guadagnino’s ambitious follow-up to last year’s sublime Call Me By Your Name. Us mere mortal movie viewers will have to wait another four months to see Guadagnino’s new take on Dario Argento’s horror masterpiece, and the Italian filmmaker is making the wait even more agonizing by revealing that he already screened Suspiria for a very special friend: Quentin Tarantino.

Speaking with Italy’s La Repubblica, Guadagnino said that he showed his Suspiria adaptation to Tarantino last fall, and that the American filmmaker was “enthusiastic” about his take on Argento’s material:

We’ve been friends since our jury duty at the Venice Film Festival. I was nervous but eager to hear his advice. We saw it at his place and his reaction warmed me. He was enthusiastic about it, in the end he was crying and hugged me. Because it’s a horror movie but also a melodrama, my goal was to make you look at the horror without being able to take [your eyes off the screen] because you’re captivated by the characters. Amazon is very happy.

Dario Argento’s original Suspiria is a gorgeous, deeply unsettling masterpiece that remains highly regarded by film-lovers and horror fans alike. The fact that Tarantino, a renowned cinephile himself, was moved to tears by Guadagnino’s homage to Argento’s work is the only seal of approval I need. (Also: Were there a lot of feet in this movie or what?)

The new Suspiria stars Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton and Mia Goth, and centers on an aspiring dancer who joins a European dance academy and soon discovers some sinister things hidden beneath the school’s prestigious surface. Amazon Studios recently unveiled the first trailer for Suspiria, which diverges from Argento’s vibrant neon hues with a more subdued color palette — though Guadagnino’s film still looks every bit as stylish and eerie as hell.

We’ll find out if it holds a candle to Argento’s classic when Suspiria arrives in theaters on November 2.

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