by: KFear
Posted on 11.24.09 in All Horror Films > Supernatural > Thriller/Suspense
Release Date: 2007

The masters of Italian horror are of a different breed.  Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, and Mario Bava have made films that define the best examples of, not one, but multiple genres in all of horror filmmaking.  Bava, with Black Sunday (aka The Mask of Satan), proved to audiences that he can create a masterwork of gothic cinema while still backing up his catalog with plenty of other films that suggest supreme talents in using shapes and vivid color combinations to enhance his sets and cinematography. His giallos are no different and his talents can be closely compared to Fulci’s in the respect that the two directors were able to create films of multiple genres, mostly in horror and giallo,  while still holding onto their own personal stylistic approaches that made each of them so incredibly unique in the first place.  Argento, too, had a firm grasp on an expertly crafted giallo and has proven this time and time again with films like, Tenebre, Deep Red, Opera, and the Bird With the Crystal Plumage.  Argento, like Fulci and Bava, also left a deep incision in horror history with two films, that weren’t giallos, but instead, they were violent but remarkably elegant masterworks of stylized horror.  These two films are Suspira and Inferno.  They are the first two installments in Argento’s Three Mothers Trilogy.  Suspria, by many, is considered to be one of the top horror films of all time and Inferno is a worthy follow-up to the trilogy that was aiming to become my favorite “3 piece” in the whole horror genre.  I did however have to keep in mind that the last 2 decades of Argento films have been mostly subpar; some much worse than subpar.  Way too many years later, this master of horror finally gives his fans the third installment to the Trilogy.  It’s titled, Mother of Tears, and it is in fact…I’ll say it….here is goes……the film that finally gave me the wake-up call that Dario Argento has moved from master, to a complete disastrous filmmaker.

Mother of Tears is in every way different from its other two predecessors.  Which  is fine, really, because Inferno was quite different from Suspiria and it only made sense that with Mother of Tears, Argento would try to expand the theme of the trilogy with a much broader approach when concerning the plot and characterization.  Soooo, this time, all of Rome is about to suffer the wrath of a witch, but not just any witch, the mother of tears, the most powerful witch that still excites, or in this case, can be unleashed if ever awaken from her captivity.  Here’s a spoiler for ya, she is awaken, and all of that foreseen hell is about to break loose!   Once the powerful witch is awaken, it is up to Asia Argento, a young archeologist, to stop her from destroying Rome and then, inevitably, the entire world.  It sounds like an interesting direction to take the trilogy, but Argento spends little time explaining many elements of what would otherwise be a massive story.  What we’re left with is horrible mess of themes that are either unexplained, or are equally mixed into scenes that go nowhere, are horribly staged, and look as if they were filmed in a single take.  The result is a film that feels nothing like Suspiria or Inferno, which is ok, but when the film doesn’t appear to even be finished and it’s released to audiences, I feel more than let down, I feel infuriated.

Mother of Tears feels more like a high school play than anything else, and the saddest part is that it seems as if, at least from what the making of the film featurette included with the DVD release would also imply, that this is precisely the direction in which Argento wanted to take the trilogy.  The first gore scene in the film shows a woman who is gutted and then strangled with her own intestines.  The men who do this too her, I can only assume, are suppose to be demon henchmen that are sent from the mother of tears herself.  I’m not too sure who these people actually are, nobody is, because these themes, amongst many others, are painfully unexplained throughout the films entirety.   Still, the henchmen are dressed as if they are ready for Halloween and enter the scene, out of nowhere, as if they are ready to steal candy from a 4^th grader.  What we’re left with is a gore scene that feels a little too forced, unrehearsed, and too campy for its own good.  Sadly, most of the scenes in this film feel like this.  In the end, it’s hard not to feel entirely let down by this much anticipated conclusion, especially when it has been over two decades since the trilogies second installment.

The part of the film that really pissed me off was the very last scene.  The witch is destroyed, because, it turns out, that the only thing that made her at all powerful was a ragged t-shirt with glitter on it.  Once the t-shirt is destroyed, so is the witch.  I’m not even making this up Argento fans!  And does it make sense?  NO!  The spirit of the most deadly witch should NOT rest within a t-shirt that has glitter glue writing on it!  I know this, but Dario, Dario does not.  Sooo, anyway, once the witch is destroyed (I feel the need not to apologize for this spoiler) our surviving characters decide to laugh in hysterics, right into the camera, as if what they went through was the biggest joke of their lives.  I guess it’s fitting though, if you look at it in the right light, because Mother of Tears feels a lot like Argento’s Phantom of the Opera; it’s all just a big joke.

• ★★★★★

  Acting:

• ★★★★★

  Blood:

• ★★★★★

  Violence:

• ★★★★★

  Partying:

• ★★★★★

  Language:

• ★★★★★

  Humor:

• ★★★★★

  Predictable:

• ★★★★★

  Girls:

• ★★★★★

  Gore:

• ★★★★★

  Sexuality:

• ★★★★★

  Torture:

• ★★★★★

  Overall:

I'll never boycott all his films. It's just so very very strange that he's doing this to his career. It just doesn't make ANY sense at all. I think he's crazy. I haven't seen Giallo yet, but I heard that's terrible too.

Dismal Dario! - His episodes of Masters of Horror look like masterpieces compared to this trivial dross. He will persist on casting his talentless daughter as well. Self-conscious, humourless, drab and worst of all demeaning to its audience. If Argento continues like this I will have no option but to boycott his films.