10 RIDICULOUS Horror Movies That Are TERRIFYING

Dario Argento's Suspiria sounds positively laughable when you read the pitch aloud, centered as it is around a prestigious German dance academy that's actually a front for a coven of witches. 

Sure, why the hell not?

Throw in the film's totally wild approach to lighting and production design, its dreamlike storytelling, and that Goblin musical score, and Suspiria feels like a mishmash of incongruent ingredients that really shouldn't work. But such is the pleasure of the giallo subgenre, focused as it is on feeling over water-tight logic, and extremely stylised aesthetics over boring kitchen sink realism.

Argento's surreal approach is precisely what makes Suspiria so effective, ensuring the audience can never get comfortable with what they're watching, instead constantly having to field unhinged curveballs being lobbed their way by the master filmmaker.

It's bewildering stuff, and while Suspiria should be incredibly difficult to take seriously, it's ultimately so intoxicatingly, atmospherically bizarre as to muster genuine fear throughout.