After 31 years, renowned Italian horror filmmaker Dario Argento finally completes his Three Mothers Trilogy with the third entry in the series, Mother of Tears. While the new movie has its share of extremely graphic scenes and features some genuinely chilling imagery, ultimately the movie isn't half as well made or even enjoyable as Susperia (1977, the first installment in the trilogy) or Inferno (1980, the second installment), and will likely disappoint both fans of the series and those who have never seen an Argento film.
As impressively grisly as it is, Mother of Tears is one of the weakest films in Argento's filmography.
Bored to Tears
The film begins with an ancient urn being unearthed from a cemetery in Rome. The preacher who discovers the relic sends it to an occult expert in the city and once it's opened all hell breaks loose as people go berserk in the streets of Rome, murdering and wreaking havoc. Soon a group of witches emerge, adding to the pandemonium. Sounds good , right? Well, as interesting as the basic premise for Mother of Tears is, everything, and I mean everything falls apart from there. Even Asia Argento (the director's daughter who plays the film's protagonist) can't save the movie with her convincing performance.
My biggest beef with MoT is how noticeably cheap the entire film feels--almost to the point where you feel like you're watching some straight to DVD horror garbage you'd find on the new release wall at your local Blockbuster. Yeah, it's that disappointing. With a few exceptions like Asia Argento, most of the performances are stale and you get the impression from watching the film that the actors don't have a clue what they're doing in the scenes they are in. There are enough interesting moments in the film where there's an opportunity for it to pick up, but due to sloppy storytelling and lack of a cohesive plot, Mother of Tears falls flat on its face.
We can't believe we're saying this, but some of the gore in the movie is just uncalled for.
In addition to these two nipple slips, you do see Asia Argento's boobs. And, yes it's weird because the director is her father.
Watch Susperia, Phenomena, and Opera Instead...
Despite its numerous shortcomings, Mother of Tears does have some positive qualities, such as several shockingly gruesome scenes such as one towards the beginning of the film where a woman is disemboweled and then strangled with her own ropy innards (something that's been done before in cinema but never so barbarously). The always awesome Udo Kier, who played a similar role as a priest in Susperia, also makes a brief appearance in the film, but he's not in the movie long enough to make a difference.
Dario Argento really hasn't made anything spectacular since 1987's Opera, and unfortunately Mother of Tears certainly doesn't reestablish him as one of the leading names in the genre. If you're in mood for some gore, this might be worth a rental once it hits DVD, but bear in mind that you might have a hard time putting up with the film.
Terror Rating: 2 out of 5
Originality: 2 out of 5
Level of Gore: 4 out of 5
Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Recommendations: Susperia, Inferno, Phenomena, Tenebre, Opera.
An obvious nod to an identical scene from Argento's Phenomena, Asia takes a bath in the world's largest corpse smoothee.
See the trailer to Mother of Tears here.
