Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria remake is doing a pretty fantastic job of fucking up the film world's heads—and stomachs—before it even premieres. But anyone only tangentially familiar with Dario Argento's original candy-colored bloodbath might not know it's part of a trilogy, known as "The Three Mothers" (or "Le Tre Madri" if you're fancy and/or Italian), that began with Suspiria and continued on into Inferno (1980) and The Mother of Tears (2007).

Speaking with Deadline, Guadagnino hinted at his own possible triptych, which would possibly delve into the backstory of Tilda Swinton's Madame Blanc as well as a few ominous names from the original:

At the beginning we were going to title the movie Suspiria: Part One but we didn’t want to give the impression of something that couldn’t stand alone. Truthfully, I’d be interested to explore the origin of Madame Blanc and Helena Marcus [sic] and also the future of Suzy Bannion in the world. So maybe. We’ll have to see how the movie goes.

*spoilers for Suspiria (1977) and possibly Suspiria (2018) to follow*

Helena Markos—played, uncredited, by Lela Svasta in the original—is the unseen Directress of the demonic dance academy that Susie Bannion (Jessica Harper in the original, Dakota Johnson in the remake) finds herself in. Markos also happens to be an ancient, horrifying witch known as the Mater Suspiriorum (The Mother of Sighs), one of the "Three Mothers" that Argento based his trilogy around. There's no Helena Markos credited in the remake, but according to IMDB Malgosia Bela has been cast as "Mother".

For what it's worth, Guadagnino also confirmed that his Suspiria has an end-credits scene:

There is a moment worth waiting for after the end credits. What was the message behind that final shot?

 

The character is looking forward towards something. I think it would be interesting to know what that is…

Suspiriavengers, anybody?

Here is the official synopsis for Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria:

As a darkness builds at the center of a world-renown dance company, its artistic director (Swinton), a young American new to the troupe (Johnson), and a grieving psychotherapist (Ebersdorf) become entangled in a bloody, sighing nightmare.