Cradle of nightmares Dario Argento is one of the masters of Italian horror, whose works made a great contribution to cinema, brought the genre of “giallo” to world fame, and repeatedly confirmed his title of a real master of his craft. In the work of Argento, an interesting event is a trilogy about three mothers, which ends with “Mother of Tears” or the so-called “Third Mother”. Starting back in 1977 with “Suspicion” (also called “Suspiria”, if not to translate the meaning of the word), the trilogy continued “Hell” (Inferno) in no less distant 1979, and only in 2007, after so many years, finally ended “Mother of tears”.
I would call this film the best in the trilogy, if not the best in the work of Argento. Two regular actresses of the master: Daria Nicolodi and Asia Argento (daughter of the director) simultaneously appear in this film, as always brilliantly performing their roles. And the plot revolves around the urn found during excavations, becoming a real cradle of nightmares, from which a variety of horrors are born and come to light.
In terms of the most frightening scenes, we will be offered a very numerous set with a variety of Horror weapons. Terrible-looking demons, orgies with dismemberment into pieces, terrible black magic and mystical elements, bloody murders, with savoring details and a detailed visual demonstration. If they show a fork separately and the eye in which they are going to stick it, then be sure to stick it in the most spectacular way so that the frost gets through the skin from the cruelty of what is happening. Who will not be frightened by makeup and meat, will be served by mad witches, will be shown as a distraught mother throws a baby into cold water, and another cleaver will cut his own son, at the end slit his throat. And all these individual scary episodes will actually be logical events of a single whole, and despite the fact that the thread of the plot is sometimes omitted for secondary scenes, one way or another, giving us interesting characters, albeit for a short time on the screen, the story itself looks very fascinating, mysterious and mystical.
An open box of pandora will give the world a real feast of darkness, and colors and shades will be observed in the strongest proportion. If witches are Gothic, if demons are terribly ugly, if mysticism, then with real miracles in the spirit of invisibility and hypnosis. And of course, all with the signature portion of depraved lust of a large number of erotic scenes, and under the cries of the most cruelly dismembered heroes of the narrative.
Step by step, the atmosphere of the film becomes more tense, and the plot will be more difficult to understand, gradually gaining some guidelines and meaning. But difficult to understand this film to call the language will not turn. Dario shoots competently visually, calculating the frame, always clearly making loud chords and focusing on the most important things.
And, in principle, the all-encompassing, final chaos, under the cries of martyrs and moans of pleasure, under the choir and dark prayers, ends with the divine vocals of Dani Filth in the final credits, climaxing all positive impressions, and saturating the film with even greater color. A horror movie as it should be. Very well balancing many valuable elements of the genre, with the central core of an interesting story, he is wonderfully able to scare and horrify, perfectly keeps in suspense thanks to the staging of a real maestro symphony of horrors, crowning all his previous creations, I would say.
And if “Suspicion” was more like a classic giallo with a fantastic ending, and “Hell” was deprived of integrity and the main characters, then “Mother of Tears” turned out to be a full-fledged mystical horror, able to make a strong impression, and not recommended for viewing by the faint-hearted. And the whole film here is like the embodiment of the main negative heroine - a merciless creation, right pulling all the strings, attractive and creepy at the same time, flawless and insane, and the whole bacchanalia of violence with solemn frankness and cruelty, strong, terrible and amazing. This is the Mother of Tears, this is Mater Lachrymarum. Perfect embodiment of the perfect horror from the best Italian director in the genre of horror.
10 IZ 10
Original