🪜 Suspiria sequels 🇮🇹 Italian Horror ⛤ Witchcraft (1989)

"The time has come when you must choose. Pick up the knife, and become Levana, or leave it, and stay who you are."

Il Gatto Nero (1989), an unofficial second sequel to Argento’s Suspiria (1977), is not a great film, but it’s entertaining enough, very quirky, and always fun. You should consider watching it if you’re a fan of the mythos behind Suspiria (1977) or any of the films in Le tre madri (The Three Mothers) series.

Suspiria’s sequel, Inferno (1980), was released quickly but had challenges in development and marketing and was never a fully satisfying follow-up. I have found Inferno to be enjoyable if treated as a supernatural giallo film, but it’s ineffective horror compared to Suspiria, despite having some very entertaining murder sequences (e.g. the cat rat incident). Mario Bava was placed in charge of some very important elements and the consequence is a less intense and edgy film. Until 2007’s La terza madre (The Mother of Tears), which I consider outstanding despite critical response that suggests otherwise, there was no conclusion to the intended trilogy. Enter Il Gatto Nero (1989), which served as an unofficial third film. (Please keep this separate in your mind from Fulci’s 1981 Black Cat: Gatto nero, in my opinion a much stronger film.)

Il Gatto Nero ‘89 is a meta-horror film about an actress working on a film called “Il gatto nero”, a film that is only mentioned once but that donates it’s title to the actual film and allows it to say it is based on a story by Poe, which it isn’t. Nothing related to Poe is ever mentioned. A new film-within-film is casting for the role of the third mother, Mater Lachrymarum, here called Levana, and the actual Levana may not be taking kindly to this decision. This movie-within-movie feeling has some resemblance to Soavi’s 1987 Deliria (Stage Fright), released two years prior. I’ve paid little attention to meta-horror prior to Scream, so it’s enjoyable to be discovering these earlier versions.

There’s no getting around that Il Gatto Nero 1989, unlike Inferno, is full gross-out horror, with a witch that is more wart than witch and who vomits neon green fluid onto her victims, and with some proper horror violence. And the script was written by Daria Nicolodi, Argento’s ex wife and the female lead in Profondo Rosso (Deep Red). But it was passed up by the intended director, and Cozzi ended up rewriting it and taking it in a direction that feels entirely different from what Argento would have done.

The idea is clever but the execution has some botched moments, including special effects that look like they were created by a troll. It frequently feels like Cozzi just shrugs and decides that whatever exists is good enough. The craftsmanship and sense of artistic coherence behind a lot of Argento’s best work is not present, and it’s not attempted, and perhaps that’s for the best in the end.

Substantive spoilers in the blockquote for Il Gatto Nero and Malignant, and vaguely phrased spoilers for Suspiria 2018. Skip as warranted.

Some weird stuff happens arbitrarily that is never explained, like cuts to pictures of the moon against the background of space at random moments of witchery. As fun as space witches could have been, this was never used to any great effect. Same with the random decision that the protagonist could use magic to reverse time. That was a really gentle learning curve from no magic being performed to breaking causality entirely.

The oddest part of this film is how much ideas in it feel like they relate to Suspiria 2018. There are constant shots of a fetus decaying, and it seems to be implied that a fairy or Levana or something was always living inside the lead, Malignant-style, but a child not a parasitic twin. I could be totally confused about the fetus issue because it was very unclear and needs a second watch.

But, more interestingly, the ending of Suspiria 2018, where the identity of Mater Suspiriorum is revealed, is nearly identical to the concepts being played with related to Levana here. I’m not sure I’d want to argue there is a connection without hearing Guadagnino say so, and Guadagnino’s trick is positive and heroic and there’s nothing positive ab out Levana. But there’s a clear resonance there in a way that I like seeing.

While this is never going to be a favorite film, it is a very fun time filled with nauseating and imperfect excess. Without the relation to Suspiria I’d not recommend it at all. But hearing Goblin’s soundtrack to Suspiria 1977 suddenly being used, and seeing a clever approach to the source material that has interesting conenctions with Suspiria 2018 may have been worth the entire viewing time for someone like me.

Recommended, but only if you’re a fan either of Le tre madri or you like low-budget gross-out horror.

Some Lists:

🪜 Le tre madri series (The Three Mothers) [Argento, Cozzi, Guadagnino)
👻 Supernatural Horror
⛤ Witchcraft and Dark or Ritual Magic
🇮🇹☠️ Italian Horror/Giallo Master List (Ranked)
8️⃣ 1980–1989
🇮🇹 Italian Horror
💎 Slightly Hidden Horror Gems and 🌱 Candidates
📽️ Viewing Next 🗂️ Index of Lists

Looking for something different? Consider these:

Profondo Rosso (Deep Red) | Deliria (Stage Fright) | La setta (The Sect) | La Chiesa (The Church) | Demoni 1 and 2 | Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person | Red Rooms | [REC] | The Sadness | Train to Busan | Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key | Sette note in nero (The Psychic) | La terza madre (The Mother of Tears) | ...E tu vivrai nel terrore! L'aldilà (The Beyond) | Black Cat: Gatto nero | All the Colors of the Dark | Tin and Tina