• Title: Suspiria
• Format: VHS
• Release: 2024
• Country: UK / PAL
• Certificate: 18
• Contents: Suspiria VHS tape
• Features running time:  100mins

Now, here’s something a little different for all you horror hounds – a brand-new VHS release in the UK. Yep, you read that correctly, a new VHS release!

Arriving just in time for the Halloween season is a VHS cassette of Dario Argento’s 1977 horror classic, Suspiria. The release – which is new for 2024 – comes courtesy of Vice Press and is a limited collector’s edition which is currently available from the Vice Press website or via HMV.

The release comes in two different editions – both of which I will showcase in a moment – but in essence, this is a cassette tape of Suspiria, housed in all-new packaging and available for a very limited time. Once they are gone, they are gone!

If you’re a fan of this particular movie and you like what you see here, then you had best jump on this one. I’m not on commission to sell these by the way, I’m merely a fellow fan, and as soon as I was made aware of these absolute beauties I had to hit the pre-order button.

Now, as mentioned above there are two editions of this VHS. The first (below) is limited to 500 copies and comes in a cardboard slipcase.

The front features some absolutely eye-popping artwork, while the back includes a couple of stills from the film, as well as a descriptive blurb of the movie, which reads as follows:

“The setting is a German Ballet School, in the present day, where the students suffer worse mishaps than a mis-step at the Barre.

“Among the terrors not on the curriculum are an invasion of maggots from the attic, bats in the boudoir, pits filled with horribly enmeshing wire coils and a staff room coven of witches.

“Argento is a talent who gets-and-gives fun by loading his movie to excess and making the plot run second to a series of absurd set-pieces. But he is also a considerable technician, and his style runs the baroque gamut from coloured filters to a fiendish stereo electronic-rock score, which sounds as of 500 cats are having the tails tramped on in unison.

“The cast is bizarrely international with Udo Kier as a vampirical psychiatrist, Alida Valli as a formidable ballet mistress, and Jessica Harper as the innocent Suzy, who arrives fresh from America at an airport where doors open automatically and let the passengers disappear into a storm that seems generated by a hellish inferno.

“Suspiria is a deliberately overblown bit of Gothic ghoulishness that makes other tales of terror look anaemic.”

Pull back the slipcase and the cassette is revealed and it is an absolute treat for the eyes. As you can see (below), the cassette features a show-stopping design which is printed onto the plastic.

At the centre of this design is a paper label which includes the Suspiria title, along with an image of Suzy and the Vice Press Home Video logo. As VHS cassette designs go, it’s pretty stunning.

Moving onto edition number two, and as you’ll notice straight away this one comes in a hard plastic clamshell case. Back in the era of VHS (largely the ’80s and ’90s) a hard plastic clamshell was the default packaging for VHS tapes in the UK, so if you want something that feels like it has been lifted from the past, this is the edition for you.

As you can see, this edition features a reversible cover, with cover A featuring a close-up of Suzy and Cover B taking its design from the Suspiria poster. Once again this is a limited edition release, but this time around it is to 250 copies rather than 500.

It’s worth highlighting that the cassette contained inside this edition is a standard VHS tape with the Suspiria label. It doesn’t contain the pink patterned design as seen with edition No.1.

These VHS releases retail for £30.99 a-piece from HMV or £27.99 each if buying direct from the Vice Press website. If buying direct from Vice Press you also get the option to choose between PAL (UK & Europe) and NTSC (North America).

However, be warned, the Vice Press website tends to sell out pretty quickly, so it is worth keeping an eye on the HMV site, even if it is a couple of pounds dearer. It may cost you a little extra, but it may be the best way to secure a copy.

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