Mother of Tears. Out now. (****4/10)
Monday, October 20th, 2008To suggest that Mother Of Tears completes a trilogy is, frankly, suspect. Technically, it does indeed complete a very loose “trilogy” that legendary Italian horror director Dario Argento began in 1977 with the brilliant classic Supsiria. The second movie in this “trilogy” is called Inferno, and it was released in 1980. I suppose that a trilogy can be finished twenty-eight years after the second installment, but the only things connecting these three movies are the director himself and a vague similarity in the stories of the witches that populate each one. Alliance Films released Mother of Tears October 14th, and it is attempting to cash in on the underground cult status of the legendary Suspiria. But the two films are not even close to being in the same league.
Suspiria was a masterpiece of tone and suspense. The soundtrack was magnificent, the filming new and the set design was visually stunning. All of this combined to create an atmosphere of foreboding, genuine tension, and some truly terrifying moments. An almost psychedelic assault on the senses, it’s a colourful, vibrant, and horrifically violent film that really works in nearly every way. I say “nearly” because the acting is not stellar, the script is pretty weak, and the climax to the film leaves quite a bit to be desired. But the quality of the rest of the film more than makes up for the problems, and it ushered in a whole new genre of horror films, initially in Italy and then the rest of the world. Inferno was quite good as well, but any film would have difficulty measuring up to Suspiria when being referred to as a “sequel” to that classic. Anyone remember Chinatown 2? Yeah, I thought so.
Mother of Tears features some of the things that make almost any Dario Argento movie worth watching. It is visually stunning, as one would expect, and has a terrific score that heightens the fear factor and the mood. The camera work is impressive, and there is a tremendous amount of graphic gore. Also, the film features many, many boobs, two of them belonging to Argento’s daughter Asia (remember that Vin Diesel movie XXX? Yeah, I thought so.) Asia Argento is the star of the movie, playing a woman named Sarah who works at a museum, and begins to look at a strange, ancient urn that is dug up by a construction crew in Rome. Within a few minutes of the appearance of the urn, there is an appearance made by a monkey. That is quickly followed by some shadowy men in cloaks who ratchet open Sarah’s friend’s mouth until her skull splits, then disembowl her and strangle her with her own intestines.
After escaping from these men in cloaks, Sarah runs off, and no more references are made to the men in cloaks again, in the whole film. They merely disappear, and some witches begin to appear instead. The rest of the movie involves cheesy apparitions giving Sarah advice, and what basically amounts to a long chase through Rome from one person who might be able to help her to another person who might be able to help her. Each of these people is killed (graphically) before they actually get around to helping her. Which, unfortunately, means they also get killed before they get around to explaining anything to her. Which means that we, the audience, never have anything, ever, explained to us. We do need some explanation. Instead we get this strange and incomprehensible series of chases, culminating in a strange and incomprehensible ritual and SPOILER WARNING: perhaps the easiest, most anti-climactic dispatching of the main villain in movie history.
In the meantime, the city of Rome goes crazy, with the citizens turning on each other in graphic scenes of assault, stabbings, shootings, beatings, and infanticide. In fact, I think there may be more children, many of them infants, killed graphically in this film than I have ever seen in a movie before. There is even a scene where we see a witch who has eaten what is presumably a fetus, and she is attached like a fish on a hook by an umbilical cord that is still attached inside another witch’s uterus. To call this violence “excessive” doesn’t begin to cover it. I expected some truly heinous scenes, knowing what Dario Argento is all about, so I wasn’t terribly freaked out by any of this, until my own personal phobia of nipples was triggered when a cop gets his nipple sliced off. Only then did I turn away in disgust and curl up in a ball.
The biggest difference between Suspiria and Mother of Tears is that while the acting, plot, and climax are thin in both, this isn’t enough to detract from Supsiria’s classic status. And both feature great camera work, great music, and great set design. But this isn’t enough to elevate Mother of Tears out of “garbage” status. Both movies will likely be considered classic by some. Both will be considered garbage by others. I split my vote here, and for me, Mother of Tears just doesn’t make the cut.