Back to School
HORROR FILMS THRIVE ON REPETITION AND VARIATION. THOSE DRIVEN BY a particularly resonant image or fear—the seductive but deadly lover, the offspring too powerful to be contained or controlled, the terror of isolation or darkness—inevitably generate sequels and remakes. Yet despite its enduring popularity, the work of Dario Argento has until recently remained untouched, perhaps because their narratives are so intimately bound up with the filmmaker’s distinctive style.
Even within the parameters of Argento’s films, the least likely candidate for a remake would seem to be (1977), a glittering fever dream of fairy-tale tropes rendered in lollipop colors and driven by a pulsating progressive-rock soundtrack by Goblin, essentially the house band of from 1975 to 2000. It’s certainly his most popular movie, a bloody, bravura fantasy in which a or , and mean girls hissing that students whose names begin with “S” have the names of snakes.
