5. Suspiria (1977)
American student Suzy Bannion arrives at a private dance academy in Germany. Gradually she realises that nothing in the academy is what it seems. Young girls who are connected to the academy begin dying. Although Suzy has respect for her teachers - Madam Blanc and Miss Tanner - she senses that they are not who they claim to be so she does, like all good Argento heroines, a bit of snooping and finds out that the dance academy is just a front for a witches' coven Suzy has to track down Helena Markos, the by now hardly alive founder of the coven. However, the witches will make life for Suzy very difficult as she tries her utmost to defeat the coven. Generally considered to be one of Argento's greatest films, he plays the movie as a straight horror story, therefore the Giallo element that made him so famous was eliminated from the film. It is a thrilling ride, beginning with the brutal murder of a dance student and the unfortunate impaling by falling glass of her friend. Argento, even more than usual, uses colour in Suspiria to heighten the surreal and horrific events that are going on. The dance instructors make for fantastic witches. The plot is quite limited but you will be too busy staring at the gorgeous visuals in the film to care. I particularly like the scene in which Suzy's friend falls into a room filled with barbed wire. What a cruel way to make someone die. And then she comes back from the dead and goes after Suzy with a knife - definitely the scariest moment in the film. A masterpiece from Argento.