La terza madre (2007)

Directed by Dario Argento [Other horror films: L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo (1970), Il gatto a nove code (1971), 4 mosche di velluto grigio (1971), Profondo rosso (1975), Suspiria (1977), Inferno (1980), Tenebre (1982), Phenomena (1985), Opera (1987), Due occhi diabolici (1990, segment ‘The Black Cat’), Trauma (1993), La sindrome di Stendhal (1996), Il fantasma dell’opera (1998), Non ho sonno (2001), Il cartaio (2003), Ti piace Hitchcock? (2005), Giallo (2009), Dracula 3D (2012), Occhiali neri (2022)]

The third part of the Three Mothers trilogy (following Suspiria and Inferno), La terza madre, better known as Mother of Tears, is pretty awful. It’s just not good. Even as a stand alone movie, it suffers, which is nothing compared to how much it suffers as a follow-up to two classics of horror. The ideas here are generally okay, but the execution is atrocious.

And I suspected that going in. I’ve held off on watching Mother of Tears for years, despite having bought it on DVD for $4 a couple of years ago, because I’ve heard it’s pretty lackluster and disappointing. It’s a pretty big shame, as you’d hope the final movie in a trilogy that began in 1977 would pack a hell of a lot more punch than this one did.

For positives, I can say that the gore here is okay. I was going to say ‘solid,’ but changed my mind last second, as some of it does feel a little cheap (and in fact, the whole of the movie shares the same feeling in my view). Still, there’s a woman who’s disemboweled and gets her tongue ripped out, someone gets their arm cut off, another gets their head smashed in, someone else gets their eyes pierced, and others get stabbed. It’s decently gruesome at times, which is sort of fun, but unfortunately, the story’s too messy to really take advantage of the decent gore.

Well, perhaps it’s not fair to call the story a mess. It gets it’s point across, and I’m sure Dario Argento knew what he was doing. I just didn’t personally care for the apocalyptic vibe of it, nor all the witches converging on Rome. It makes sense that the final movie in a trilogy would feel larger in scope, but by doing that, Mother of Tears doesn’t feel remotely similar to either Suspria or Inferno, both of which felt more intimate and personal affairs.

The base idea here was fine. I could have done without a character needing to master their innate magic (just by concentrating, she can turn invisible – quality stuff), and the whole finale felt especially weak to me. I did appreciate how they specifically referenced the events of Suspria, and spoke about Suzy Bannion by name, but this just didn’t have the same feeling that I associate with Dario Argento.

I also have to admit that I didn’t really buy into Asia Argento’s performance. I was surprised to recognize her (from the Vin Diesel movie xXx, but has also been in the 1998 Phantom of the Opera, The Stendhal Syndrome, and Trauma, Dario Argento movies all), but her performance just felt rather weak to me. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast, including Cristian Solimeno, Adam James, even Udo Kier, likewise failed to leave an impression on me.

I don’t know how much of this is necessarily the movie’s fault – I just couldn’t jive with this one. I liked some of the ideas, but the apocalyptic nature of the story didn’t do much for me (and I can honestly say I thought the 1997 movie The Eighteenth Angel does it better). I did like the scene in which a mother, under whatever mania was going around, threw her baby off a bridge, but overall, I left this quite unsatisfied.

For some people, perhaps this long-await finale worked. I just know that I didn’t care for it, and while I tried to keep my expectations low because I had heard lukewarm things about this one, I do think this is perhaps my least favorite movie from Dario Argento thus far.

5/10