Now seems like a good time to award the infamous SUSPIRIA TV commercial with the coveted OFFICIAL TRAUMATIZER award! I mean, what could be more 2016 than a benign, almost comforting image that spins around to reveal a shrieking death skull? Seriously- what gives with this evil commercial? You don't have to be Don Draper to know that television ads don't traditionally threaten the viewer with their own demise. What's more impressive is the fact that this TV spot is so wickedly brazen that it doesn't even deign to derive its power from one of the most visually stunning films in the history of horror! Moreover, by most accounts this seething slap of psychosis was broadcast willy-nilly and any time of the day scarring unsuspecting kids across the country (for which we thank it). Here are just a few choice trauma-testimonials we've harvested thus far….
Reader Bilgin:
When SUSPIRIA first came out, I remembered seeing the trailer for it on TV. All you would see is a woman brushing her hair from behind and her singing, "Roses are red, violets are blue, the iris is a flower…..(something, something) SUSPIRIA!! After that, every time it came on, my sister and I would run from the room. Needless to say, since my mom was a horror lover we ended up seeing it at a matinee. I was 9 and my sister was 6.
Father of Tears:
I was "introduced" to this TV trailer back in 1977 during a commercial break for "Welcome Back Kotter". I first thought it was some surreal shampoo commercial until "she" turned around! It was one of those "heart leap into throat" scares! I was 10 when that came out and every time it was on I would run out of the room while my 7-year old sister would RUN into the room to watch it!
For the above reasons and more the SUSPIRIA TV commercial deserves to be recognized as an audacious, self-standing trauma-inducing device of the highest order and for that we salute it! Of course, words can never do it justice so make sure to watch the menace to society below….
I have a bit of a "followup" to that "Traumafession" post I made several years ago.
Next Summer will the the 40th anniversary of both "Suspiria" and the infamous TV trailer. The passing decades have healed the wounds a bit. I can now watch this on TV via the extras menu on my DVD and chuckle a bit. I have even shown this to my now mid-40's sister's kids while saying "This made your Uncle Bob run out of the room each time it was on TV! A skull with a wig placed on top of a mannequin dressed in a pink turtleneck!". I think we've even joked that the woman's voice reciting the poem sounded like an evil Grace Slick!
However, some of that scare factor still sticks to this day. A few years ago one of my co-workers, who is near my age and knows about my "Suspiria" trauma, decided to play a joke on me. While I was walking by him during a lunch break he decided to loudly whisper "SUSPIRIA!!!" like the narrator in the commercial. I froze dead in my tracks! While he was laughing I muttered "You bastard!".
It's good, but it ain't got nothin' on seein' the trailer for The Last House on Dead End Street (1972) on TV at two o'clock in the morning. (Even if that trailer has squat to do with the actual film…)
For what it's worth, the "(something, something)" part sounds like "IT'LL BE THE END OF YOU!!!" to me. Not sure if the original poster cares ( ha ha ) , but that's what it sounds like.
And now I want to see that movie again. Been years.
I remember screaming "WHAT THE FUCK?!" and then laughing for 5 minutes straight upon first viewing this trailer as a lass.