Your mother can't help you anymore. We all have one mother now...the Mother of Tears.
Hookay so we come down to it. The cruelest and most beautiful of the Three Mothers, and it only took about two decades to see how the story wraps up. I think another reason I enjoyed these films so much was 1. there are only three of them and 2. you don't need to watch one to understand the other a la Saw. Each film winds up repeating what we already know- there are witches doing bad things. On with the film. This film is different from Suspiria and Inferno in tone. The first two films are almost lyrical in nature, music, colors, camera work, everything works to create a dreamlike state throughout. Mother of Tears throws that right out the window. What we have here in this film is a visceral, gore-soaked movie, shot on digital film. I mentioned how goregous the murders where in the last two films, in this one, there is nothing but brutality. This film seems to bridge a gap between old Argento (Phenomenon, Tenebre, Deep Red) with the later Argento (Sleepless, The Card Player, Giallo). The man has given this genre some of it's most memorable films, and also some of the worst. His later films are all the more disappointing because of how fantastic his earlier films were. Now the audience (or maybe just myself, as far as I know) is reduced to moments of awesomeness, but no longer awesome movies.
What you see does not exist. What you cannot see is truth.
The film starts off with a crew renovating a graveyard in Rome. A grave is uncovered with a chest chained to it and adorned with crosses. A priest investigates the ancient chest and sends it to a professional friend of his, to confirm his worst fears. The chest arrives at the museum where Sarah Mandy works. Apparently Sarah had a mother who was a white witch. This witch fought a great battle with Mater Suspiriorum, which left her in the awful condition we saw her in Suspiria. Anyway, enough retconning (that's for the Saw films). Sarah and her friend open the chest and find three clay figures inside. Oh yeah, and an unspeakable evil is unleashed upon the world. Sarah's friend attempts to read the writing on the sculptures. When she does a gang of grotesque creatures appear out of the darkness and kill her. Hard. I'm serious. This scene, about five minutes in, is one of the most brutal, messed up things I've ever seen. It got me really excited about the rest of the film. But alas, what was to follow was a very bipolar film. So basically after Sarah's friend is murdered she is on the run from the law. And witches. That chest unleashed the evil of The Mother of Tears, the most beautiful and cruel of the mothers, and now every witch on the planet is heading to Rome. The Mother of Tears aims to bring about the second age of witches. Sarah runs to one location, gets background on the Three Mothers, violent death occurs, and then she runs someplace else. Repeat ad nauseum.
So like I said, this movie started on such a strong note, then it was boring for about twenty minutes, then another kill got me interested, then twenty more minutes went by. These lags nearly killed the movie each time for me. To a much lesser extent this was like watching Indy 4 or Die Hard 4, bare with me-- you're getting the movie you've been wanting and waiting for for decades, and it's good to settle in to familiar characters or even directors, but it will never EVER live up to your expectations. I've heard and read a lot of people saying they wish Argento from 20 years ago would have directed this. That would have been mind blowing, but what we have here is cold pizza that showed up an hour late. Yet, it IS STILL PIZZA. Ha, see what I did there? Italian director? Italian food? Nevermind. Completist need to see this film. Gore hounds need to see this film. Not really anyone else.
What I like
I like how Udo Kier returns. Nobody dies like that man. See Cigarette Burns for more proof.
I like how Asia Argento looks like a librarian with a sleeping disorder in this film.
I like how a monkey is one of the scarier characters in this film.
I like that the book The Three Mothers makes a reappearance.
I like how the last 5 minutes of this film aren't really that shocking since two girls one cup hit first....gross.
I like that one of the witches looks like Tila Tequila and promptly dies.
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