‘Suspiria’ received an eight-minute ovation following its world premiere screening at the Venice Film Festival tonight.

As expected, the wild and wonderful movie is sharply dividing critics. Indiewire calls it a ‘grim and glorious work of madness’ and the UK’s Daily Telegraph gives it five stars, hailing it as ‘better than the original’. Conversely, Time calls it ‘bland, boring, and silly’ and Rogerebert.com decries it ‘hollow and pretentious’. It was always likely to be so.

Earlier in the day, the film’s first press screening received good applause but also a handful of whistles and boos. The movie is a wild ride and was always likely to polarize. Some of the local press have a complicated relationship with Guadagnino to boot.

It was all smiles on the red carpet tonight as director Luca Guadagnino was accompanied by actors Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jessica Harper and Alek Wek as well as the film’s composer Thom Yorke and writer David Kagjanich. And it was standing room only at the film’s fun press conference earlier in the day.

The $20M re-imagining of Dario Argento’s 1977 cult classic revisits the story of an American newcomer to the prestigious Tanz dance academy who comes to realize the school is a front for something very disturbing. Backers are Amazon and K-Period Media.

For more on the Suspiria backstory, influences and potential sequels check out our interview with Guadagnino.