Hot on the heels of the announcement that spooky Isabelle Fuhrman will headline David Gordon Green's long-discussed-but-now-actually-happening "Suspiria" remake, comes word that several more actors have joined the cast. In a piece about French production company Wild Bunch's Cannes slate, ScreenDaily reports that international treasure Isabelle Huppert has joined the cast of "Suspiria" alongside Janet McTeer, Michael Nyqvist and Antje Traue. This cast is already scary good.
"Suspiria" is, of course, the remake of Dario Argento's immortal, crayon-colored 1977 horror film about a girl (fleeting cult icon Jessica Harper) who goes away to a ballet school that she slowly discovers is run by a coven of evil witches. Since "Black Swan" er, "borrowed" so much of "Suspiria's" plot, the new version will simply be about (according to the ScreenDaily report) "an American student who stumbles on a coven of witches while studying in Europe." Sounds reasonable to us.
Huppert, who is more or less a living legend at this point (who else can be counted amongst the cast of "Coup de Torchon," "Heaven's Gate," "White Material," and French-dubbed version of "The Fantastic Mr. Fox?"), we suspect will play the head of the coven of witches because, well, you're not going to hire Huppert and not let her play the head of the coven of witches. You can count the number of U.S. pictures that Huppert has made on the fingers of one hand, but interestingly, this marks her second in a row, following Niels Arden Oplev's currently filming thriller "Dead Man Down" with Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace.
Janet McTeer, who just made a splash (and nabbed a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination) in "Albert Nobbs," will probably also be a witch, we're assuming. Nyqvist, who played Mikael Blomkvist in the original Swedish "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" movies (and recently appeared as the most uninteresting part of Brad Bird's "Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol"), will probably play another member of the school's staff, although if Julian Sands taught us anything, it's that dudes can be witches too. Traue, who is about to have her big breakthrough in next summer's "Superman: Man of Steel," playing canonical character Faora, will also most likely play another teacher.
The ScreenDaily report also notes that three-time Oscar-winning costume designer Milena Canonero (most recently for "Marie Antoinette") has joined the production team alongside Green's regular collaborators, production designer Richard A. Wright and cinematographer Tim Orr. They're joining the already announced production team of "I Am Love" director Luca Guadagnino and Francesco Melzi d'Eril (who also produced "I Am Love"). This is a pretty impressive bunch, especially for a genre movie.
Hopefully things will solidify for "Suspiria" during the festival and we'll soon be able to report a projected release date for the film. We'll go ahead and cue up the soundtrack now.