"Birth and death are extraordinary experiences. Life is a fleeting pleasure."
Nick and Johanna’s three-part exploration of the theme of dance in horror cinema concludes with Gaspar Noé’s 2018 film CLIMAX, set in the deep winter of 1996 in France. CLIMAX follows one night in the lives of a dance troupe whose post-rehearsal sangria is spiked with LSD, leading to nightmarish consequences. All the while, dance and music are at the forefront of the film, with Noé including two extended single-cut dance sequences. If nothing else, CLIMAX is an incredible technical feat, and Noé manages to extract both stunningly executed choreography as well as raw, partly improvised performances from a cast of largely untrained actors. But this is a Noé film, after all, and the technical perfection of the dancers soon gives way to a much more lawless world of violence and sexuality. Nick and Johanna compare and contrast the role of dance in CLIMAX with that of both versions of Suspiria, along with other topics including French identity, violence, and the sense of self versus civilisation.
