There’s a key moment at the beginning of Suspiria, Dario Argento’s outrageous 1977 Italian horror cinema masterpiece. As American ballet student Suzy (Jessica Harper) arrives in Freiburg, Germany, to attend an elite ballet school the airport’s automatic doors slide open – and eerie, urgent music bleeds in from the street, pulling her into a world beyond her control.

Just about everything about Argento’s 1977 Suspiria is extreme, from the gothic designs to the vivid primary colours and the stylised violence. Murder. Witches. Blood and whispers. And then there’s the score: Italian prog-rock stars Goblin drenched every blood-curdling moment in chaos. Over the decades Suspiria has been analysed, decoded and remade (a 2018 misfire by Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino), but the original lost none of its lurid potency.

Horror film Suspiria's soundtrack is to be reimagined by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.

A screening next month adds a new layer of sonic terror. A supergroup comprising about half of psych-rockers King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and a smattering of Melbourne’s best independent artists will reimagine that score, performing it to a screening of the film.

King Gizzard frontman Stu Mackenzie, who frequently plays the original Goblin score on his headphones while he cleans his house, revels in Suspiria’s frenzied atmosphere.