The Mother of Tears: The Third Mother

For many, many years I waited in anxious anticipation to see the realization of a dream. Not the top of Mount Everest. Not the Aurora Borealis. Not the Grand Canyon (all though that was very cool). I waited for the completion of one of my favorite trilogies - the Three Mothers trilogy by Dario Argento. When I heard the day had finally come for him to make the final film in the trilogy, and it was going to star Asia Argento but also include a role for Daria Nicolodi, I just about wet my pants. I waited for Mother of Tears to come to theaters like most Star Wars geeks waited for Episode 1 (okay, I might have been one of those geeks too...but I didn't dress up). 

Mother of Tears starts off with the discovery of a mysterious box, sealed and chained to a coffin buried right outside of an old cemetery. The local priest sends it to the museum where Sarah Mandy and her colleague, Gisele, open the box to see what's inside. Kind of like Pandora, Sarah and her friend unleash hell on earth, with her friend getting the big old brunt of it right then and there. After narrowly escaping with her life, Sarah and her boyfriend, Michael, investigate. Who killed Gisele? Why are people going mad, committing great acts of violence in the streets, and committing suicide at an alarming rate? Who is the Mother of Tears and what does she want with Sarah Mandy?

I watched this DVD twice before writing this. When I first watched it, I was disappointed. Of course, I knew that I probably would be because most of Argento's recent work was just not what I loved in his early films. However, this first viewing was much more disappointing than I was expecting. So I knew I had to watch it again to really see what I liked and disliked, just to make sure I was seeing it for the film it was rather than the disappointment it was bound to be after so many long years of anticipation.

I warn you from here on there might be things I say that might spoil it for you - so beware.

First off, this movie is gory. I mean gory, gory, blood, guts, and gore. From the opening scene where Gisele bites it to the very end there are buckets of blood everywhere. And when I say blood, I mean blood, guts, maiming, eye gouging, self-mutilation, torture, and child death. It was downright disturbing the first time and didn't really seem any easier the second time around. The opening scene where Gisele gets killed involves her mouth being crushed with some sort of screwdriver thing, being sliced open, and strangled with her own guts. That's not the worst of it. I like gore. I like buckets of blood, but for some reason this time it just seemed like too much. Ugh. I did love the mouth thing with Gisele though. It looked way freaky.Plus the scene where Udo Keir bites it was just awesome. Chop chop, slice slice! Overall, all of this slice and dice reminds me of the images used opening credits (and others like them) - think Renaissance images of Hell. 

Second, this movie has its tense, suspenseful, and scary moments. When Sarah is returning to the room and hears Gisele being murdered, you do get  bit toward the edge of your seat, especially when the baboon starts stalking her. Baboons stalking anyone is scary. The building tension of Rome falling apart seems kind of silly at first but builds to a decent tension by the end. The scene in the train bookstore where the police detective is leaning right into her and not seeing her is well done. Honestly, though, the pacing seems a bit uneven to keep the tension and suspense going full on until the end. 

The acting in this movie is really varied; some of it is good and some of it borders on community theater. Asia Argento does a good job even though some of her lines are a bit silly ("don't leave me hanging," really?). The witches are just absurd - the gangs of witches roaming the train station act more like punk rockers out of a bad exploitation film or spoof  than spooky evil witches out of a horror film. Asia has much more chemistry with the guy playing the police detective (smoking hot police detective) than she does with the actor playing her boyfriend Michael. He's just awful. He overacts the part and just bumbles around. I think it's a major flaw because it is hard to stay "in the world" with him shouting and bumbling around. Udo Keir was awesome as always plus it was nice to see him again (he was also in Suspiria).  The actress playing the Mother really didn't have a whole lot to do other than stalk around naked, but the relish she shows when she is licking the tears off of a dying woman's face makes your skin crawl. Other than that, she is pretty sub par. (The brief appearance of Mater Lachrymarum in Inferno had more oomph to it than most of the scenes in this one - which spells bad news. The good thing is most of the other henchmen were creepy enough.)

What was missing - most of the atmosphere from the first two films in the trilogy. Suspiria had the psychedelic colors, and frantic editing, the spectacular death scenes. The whole movie felt like a dream. Inferno was more noir, and it had that awesome underwater room scene. Plus, you can't forget the amazing music by Goblin. It added such mood to the films. This time around there is only one scene with that kind of heavy color wash and most of the music is operatic. I miss the sound that Goblin gave the original. 

The ending just kind of fell flat for me. The final blood orgy scene just kind of felt, well, enh. I don't know what it was missing, but it was missing something. And the crawling through the pool of skeletons to get out just felt out of place (but very reminiscent of Phenomenon). Of course, the others had kind of wham, there's the end, endings too, so maybe that is par for the course. 

These first two movies were spooky. That's what made them so intriguing. This one seems to rely mostly on the gore without the spookiness. I miss the spookiness. 

Rating: 4 Purrs because I love the idea of the Argento family back together again but somehow the magic was missing this time. It's that ending. It's good and then enh.