Dario Argento's MOTHER OF TEARS(2007).
© Dimension Extreme
Mania Grade: C-
DVD: Mother of Tears
Rating: Unrated
Starring: Asia Argento, Moran Atias, Udo Kier, Adam James
Written By: Dario Argento
Directed By: Dario Argento
Distributor: Dimension Extreme
Original Year of Release: 2007
Extras: Making of Documentary, Conversation with Dario Argento Featurette
Buy it now!
DVD: Mother of Tears
Rating: Unrated
Starring: Asia Argento, Moran Atias, Udo Kier, Adam James
Written By: Dario Argento
Directed By: Dario Argento
Distributor: Dimension Extreme
Original Year of Release: 2007
Extras: Making of Documentary, Conversation with Dario Argento Featurette
Buy it now!
DVD Review of Mother of Tears
By: Tim JansonReview Date: Saturday, October 11, 2008
Mother of Tears (known as La Terza Madre in Italy) is a film by Italian horror master Dario Argento. The film serves as the concluding part to his horror trilogy began back in 1977 with Suspira and continuing with Inferno in 1980. 27 years between sequels is a long time but the film plays on its own merits and there is no need to see the first two except to maybe develop a feel for Argento’s style. The films have revolved around the “three mothers”, hateful and evil witches who seek to rule the world. This film’s antagonist is Mother Lachrymarum, the mother of tears. The script for the film has been kicking around since the early 80’s when a third film would have made more sense.
Argento’s daughter, Asia, stars in the film as Sarah Mandy, a student assisting at the Museum of Ancient Art in Rome. Crews digging near an old church unearth an old coffin along with a funeral urn. The urn is sent to the museum to have it’s contents inspected and cataloged but when it is open, in true Pandora’s box fashion, a great evil is unleashed upon the world. Rome is soon hit by a plague of suicides and murderous rampages. Some people are driven to insanity while others become followers of the Mother of Tears. These followers are essentially Goth-inspired bullies who harass all those they encounter and they have set their sights on Sarah.
Sarah learns her deceased mother was a powerful white witch and that she also has latent magical powers. Sarah has to learn and gain control of her powers to defeat the Mother of Tears before she becomes too powerful.
Mother of Tears is one very sick, twisted, and often repulsive film. The gore is extreme to the point of being sublime. Among the gruesomeness is a priest who has his head chopped to hamburger by a meat cleaver, a woman whose eyes are gouged out, and another who takes a spear “down below” and up through her mouth. You’ll also be treated to perhaps the most depraved orgy ever filmed. The film is so violent that the distributor, Medusa Films, demanded it be heavily edited for theatrical release in Italy although the edited scenes have been put back into the DVD version. That’s just a brief summary of the film’s escapades and it will have to do because it is thread bare when it comes to plot.
While I never found Suspira to be the classic that some did, it excelled in atmosphere and a visual style that has been abandoned in favor of blood and guts. All this might have worked if the “Mother” had been an evil old crone instead of looking like a porn star with fake boobs. Argento seems to have been influenced by modern day torture-porn films and deviated from the themes and visual storytelling of his earlier efforts. On the plus side, the set design and scenes in old churches greatly enhance the creepy factor.
Asia Argento is not strong enough to carry a film on her own. Her emotions and expressions hardly change throughout 90 minutes. The most enjoyable character was a psychotic Japanese disciple of the Mother of Tears who attempts to kill Sarah in a train station. Udo Kier has a short but enjoyable role as the unfortunate Father Johannes.
Extras:
The disc includes a couple of special features including a 33:00 documentary on the making of the films with comments from the cast and Dario Argento. There is also an 8:00 conversation with Argento as he relates the inspiration for the film and the mythology of the Three Mothers. Note that both extras are in Italian with English subtitles, which is not the case with the film itself.
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Suspiria was awesome. I think Dario just got lucky with it, because it sure is low budget. But, yes, It had atmosphere and stirred the imagination. And the Goblin soundtrack for this movie (I have it) is cool, if somewhat overdone and intrusive. I'll have to look out for the sequels. I didn't know there were any.