House

Imagine if Argento's Suspiria was a comedy in the style of Evil Dead 2, except even sillier. And then throw every garish cinematic trick you can think of into the mix to make something already pretty absurd look even more so. The filmmakers took inspiration from the fears and anxieties of pre-teen girls to create their horror set-pieces, and get very close to having the final product look like it was made by children.

They just about avoid it – at least some of the arch techniques are thematically or symbolically significant. A good example is the long scene at the beginning which introduces Angel's father and the initial conflict of the story, which is that he's getting remarried and Angel's cherished memories of her dead mother are demeaned by the sudden emergence of a step-mother. The entire exchange is shot through glass panels which break apart the idyllic background (which, appropriately, looks extremely fake). The point of all this artifice is to make everything we see impossible to take seriously.

That must be the purpose of the film, if it has one. The sanctity of the family, the authority of teachers, the sacrifice of war, the fantasy of knights riding to the rescue – all of it comes in for merciless mockery. The film ends on the idea that 'the story of love must be told many times over' so that it can live on in eternity, but this is delivered in voiceover by the wicked witch who eats young girls in order to live forever and avenge herself on the man who abandoned her. The story of love turns out to be a cruel satire. The girls all have names like Angel, Melody and Sweet, and they all get gobbled up alongside the ideals they represent.