Uncut 35mm 'Suspiria' Print Has Been Found, Will Screen Across The United States

You haven't really seen Dario Argento's horror masterpiece Suspiria until you've seen it projected on the big screen. After years of only knowing the film from its murky DVD, seeing it in theaters last year was an unforgettable experience. Argento's surreal colors and that unsettling score deserve to wrap around you, to trap you. That's not something you can properly experience at home.

And now, a lot of people will have the chance to see this movie as it was intended. An uncut 35mm print of Suspiria has been discovered in pristine condition by the Chicago Cinema Society and it will make its way across the United States for a screening tour later this year.

Like with many of the great film discoveries, the Chicago Cinema Society stumbled across this print after it was abandoned, left in the storage room of an Italian movie theater since the '70s. Here's their full statement on the print (via Dread Central):

The Chicago Cinema Society is excited to announce that we have discovered an uncut Italian 35mm print of 'Suspiria.' The print was rescued from an Italian cinema that had closed down and the print had gone untouched in their storage area since 1977-78. After a brief inspection to assess the overall condition of the print, it appears as if it had only been screened a handful of times at most. The print is in excellent physical condition with no substantial wear, uncut heads and tails, minimal fading and no vinegar syndrome. Once we had the print in our film archive, we then made a very careful inspection to determine which version of 'Suspiria' we had obtained. We were stunned to find that the print is a completely uncut 6 reel print with a run time of 98 minutes in Italian language.

The timing here is fortuitous. A new Blu-ray release of Suspiria is set to arrive later this year from Synapse Films, which means that many fans will be able to see the film on the big screen before they finally purchase a worthy home video release. And then there's the upcoming remake, due out in 2018, which sounds ambitious enough to (hopefully, possibly) warrant the Suspiria name. It's always a good time to be talking about Dario Argento's work, but now we'll have plenty of excuses.

Released in 1977, Suspiria takes place in a dance academy in Germany, where a new student slowly learns that her teachers have something more sinister on their minds beyond training the next generation of ballet dancers. What unfolds is nightmarish in the most literal use of that word, with Argento sacrificing logic in favor of bold visuals that feel like they crawled out of a bad dream. It's one of the best horror movies ever made.

Here are the current dates for the tour. If you happen to live in any of these cities, I highly recommend prioritizing this:

7/28: The Metrograph, New York City, NY

9/16: The Belcourt Theatre, Nashville, TN

Early Fall: Venue confirmed and TBA, Los Angeles, CA

10/14: Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline, MA

10/26+27: Northwest Film Forum, Seattle, WA

Late Fall: Music Box Theatre, Chicago, IL