LA TERZA MADRE
(MOTHER OF TEARS:
THE THIRD MOTHER)
(Review)
If you haven’t read my reviews for the first two chapters of Dario Argento’s “Three Mothers” trilogy—Suspiria and Inferno—you may do so right now, as some of my comments in the review below could reference them. (Both reviews can be found in the Archive.)
I met the Three Mothers and built three houses for them, one in Freiburg, one in New York, and one in Rome.
I discovered too late that these houses hide obscene secrets: it is from here that the Sisters spread pain, tears, and darkness throughout the world.
-- The Three Mothers by E. Varelli

A foreboding discovery at Viterbo Cemetery finds its way to the Museum of Ancient Art in Rome, where Sarah Mandy (Asia Argento) becomes inextricably linked to the blood-drenched storm of chaos fast approaching, as Mater Lacrimarum, the Mother of Tears (Moran Atias), makes her bid to reign over the world of man.

It was with this premise that “The Three Mothers” trilogy finally came to a close last year, a full three decades after it kicked off in Dario Argento’s classic work of phantasmagoric cinema, Suspiria.
After all this time though, I’d honestly thought the trilogy would never be completed, since the director’s close personal and collaborative relationship with Daria Nicolodi (who forged the mythology behind the films with Argento) had been severed long ago.
There was, however, one very concrete and substantial link between them: their daughter, Asia.
It’s quite possibly that aspect of La Terza Madre that is the most noteworthy, that it is, in a manner of speaking, an ersatz family reunion.
Beyond that however, the film itself is a rather muddled and dissatisfying affair.


There’s a strange perfunctory air to the proceedings here, as if—as seemed to be the case with Inferno—Argento (who co-scripted his story with Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch) is going through the motions of serving up some of what he feels the audience may expect from a “Three Mothers” film.
The gruesome, gory deaths are here. The sinister score is here (by Claudio Simonetti, who’d also worked on the Suspiria score). The convenient exposition is here (some of which is provided by the one and only Udo Kier, as exorcist Father Johannes).
What is sorely lacking though, aside from the brazen, visual flair of Suspiria, is any sort of genuine menace and urgency, and a main protagonist worthy of our sympathy and respect.


To begin with, Sarah, though a character intimately tied to the “Three Mothers” mythology, seems a lukewarm lead. She’s largely ignorant of her role in the grand scheme of things, and even though she’s given a crash course of what she’s capable of (by Nicolodi, in the little screen time she’s afforded), Sarah never really comes into her destiny in any significant way.
She really only displays one particular Jedi mind trick, neat though it is.
Mostly, there’s just bungling and much casting about from one resource person to the next, sneaking off shoeless into the night (so as to avoid detection by the film’s Evil Monkey; yes, La Terza Madre has one of those), and delivering a vaguely excruciating, half-hearted performance.
While I did like Argento's recent performance in Olivier Assayas’ Boarding Gate, here, she’s a bit of a mess. And the script doesn’t do her any favours either.


Her father, meanwhile, doesn’t really seem to inform La Terza Madre with any of Suspiria’s inspired “infernal atmosphere.” Even Inferno, which I really don’t much care for, had about it a transitory sense of an inexplicable nightmare.
All La Terza Madre can boast of having are the aforementioned gory deaths, some brief (and ultimately gratuitous) lesbian action, a brief (and ultimately gratuitous) shower scene, some nudity, and lots’a witches with wild hair and bad make-up.
There’s also a parade of Grand Guignol grotesqueries towards film’s end that plays like nothing so much as a low-rent carnival funhouse.
If however, that sounds like your kind of thing, well, the film’s got all that, and, oh yeah… the Evil Monkey.

If I’m sounding glib and snarky here, it’s only because this was such a disappointment.
I really was looking forward to Argento rediscovering the dark territories of his glory days.
But he messes it up here.
He flubs it with the script, which not only displays a distinct lack of anything remotely resembling tension, but also has characters like Detective Enzo Marchi (Cristian Solimeno, from TV’s Footballers’ Wives and Strictly Confidential) who don’t really add anything substantial to the mix, yet inexplicably seem to understand there is more here than meets the eye; characters who are largely off-screen, and yet conveniently surface in the film’s climax to play frustratingly negligible roles.
The film’s riddle (“What you see does not exist, and what you cannot see, is truth.”) and the house’s secret—narrative fixtures in a “Three Mothers” film—are also equally negligible, worse than merely being throw-away. And that’s saying a lot, considering those featured in Inferno weren’t all that substantial either.


La Terza Madre seems to be nothing so much as a catalogue of missed opportunities.
There’s never any real sense of a city tearing itself apart while under the malign influence of Mater Lacrimarum. What could have been disturbing set pieces of violence and carnage (think M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening or The Signal) merely wind up being haphazard, lackluster depictions of pseudo-mayhem. (Admittedly though, the two baby bits are quite nasty.)
Argento likewise misses out on a chance for some interesting narrative symmetry, choosing to end La Terza Madre by earth, instead of fire, which closes both Suspiria and Inferno.


Some of the casting choices are also somewhat dubious, as model turned actress Atias brings nothing (beyond her physical beauty) to the role of Mater Lacrimarum, and Jun Ichikawa (who plays Katerina, one of Mater L’s witchy lackies) is so glaringly over-the-top, it’s embarrassing. Not even the needlessly—and inexplicably—brutal method of dispatch Sarah uses on Katerina can make up for the truly awful performance.
And that curiously hysterical ending…
Talk about inexplicable and embarrassing.


I must apologize for the tone, truly.
But I really wanted this one to be good, not just so the trilogy could close triumphantly, but also because I’ve been waiting quite a while for Argento to once again make the cinema a dark and disturbing place where nightmares breed.
And maybe he’ll do that with his next effort, Giallo.
For now though, La Terza Madre is a distinct and resounding disappointment that merely makes the cinema a dark and sad place where dreams are gutted, and die rather messily.
Ironically enough, just like a victim in an Argento film.

(Mother of Tears OS and images courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com and shocktillyoudrop.com.)

Thanx to Jeb, for bridging the language barrier.

reVIEW (31) 
LAND OF THE DEAD
In preparation for the upcoming Diary of the Dead, here’s a look back at George Romero’s Land of the Dead.

In 1968, then 28-year old George Romero shot a little black-and-white movie in Pittsburgh, and in the process, not only gave birth to the zombie film as we know it, but also became the Father of the Horror Film as Social Commentary. That movie was the original Night of the Living Dead.
Nearly four decades later, and Romero has returned for a fourth zombie outing in the Land of the Dead, ushering us back into the world whose rules he pretty much wrote in Night, Dawn of the Dead (1978), and Day of the Dead (1985).
Here, Riley (Simon Baker, TV’s The Guardian and The Ring Two) and Cholo (John Leguizamo) are mercenaries on the cusp of retirement, about to pack in the supply raids and zombie shooting for new lives, while Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) is the big man of Fiddler’s Green, an exclusive community for the powerful and influential, surrounded by the hordes of have-nots huddled around its skyscraping, climate-controlled glory. And in the ruins of suburbia, the walking dead seem to be regaining a semblance of sentience…

Navigating this simmering cauldron of societal unease with the confidence of a well-traveled journeyman, Romero once again tells a tale of survival horror which is far more than just flesh-chomping and head-exploding grue.
In the wake of modern civilization’s fall, trod upon remorselessly by the shuffling feet of the living dead, Romero posits the emergence of three discreet societies: Fiddler’s Green, the co-opted, jury-rigged society for the privileged few; the urban squalor of the sprawl, a more organic community, growing fungus-like in the leavings and detritus of the Green, the masses scrambling for warmth and protection through osmosis; and the living dead of suburbia, finally waking from their long sleep of apathy.

It is by the clash and grind of these societies that the tale of Land of the Dead is told, a tale of individuals trying to make some sort of sense of the world they find themselves in, of the hand Fate has dealt them.
Riley wants out, Cholo wants in, while Kaufman, the author of much of the misery and injustice we witness in Land of the Dead, sees the Green as his God-given right, by virtue of his having taken it and molded it into what it is; very American attitude, that.
Paradoxically, Kaufman even turns the milling masses into a mirror image of the walking dead, taking the “bread and circuses” maxim and giving them vice and entertainment, keeping them oblivious to the inherent wrongness of the situation.

Ironically, it is the dead of suburbia, cruelly stripped of their cognition and humanity, who first begin to stir themselves into concerted action, finally tiring of the abuse heaped upon them by the bands of the quick who repeatedly invade their territory to steal food, medicine, and supplies. (Admittedly, all of this is now useless to the dead, but it is, after all, the principle of the thing, and the flagrant disregard the quick have for them, that becomes the bloody bone of contention here.)
In the sprawl, it is only agitators like Mulligan (Bruce McFee) who try to stir up the flames of revolution, while the masses are kept occupied by gambling and bloodsport (just as the zombies are, initially, fixated by the fireworks displays of Riley’s “sky flowers”; this, in itself, a chilling echo of man’s own inherent tendency to stare, fixated, at gaudy displays of hollow “entertainment,” while his world crumbles and decays around him).

Admittedly, Romero does what he does best in Land of the Dead; manage to pack all of that (and more) into a movie that is ostensibly about flesh-eating zombies. Somehow though, there was still a part of me that wondered why he chose to return to territory he’d already charted so well in the past.
Yes, in the wake of the success of 28 Days Later, the Dawn of the Dead remake and Shaun of the Dead, zombies are once again part of the horror du jour landscape, but Romero is so much more than the zombie guy.
As I recall, Monkey Shines was a tense, nasty little shocker, and all that had was a psychotic monkey. Nope, no shambling, hungry undead there.
Of course, what did he choose as a follow-up but yet another zombie movie, Diary of the Dead.
Strangely enough though, given my tainted approval of Land of the Dead, I’m actually anticipating Diary, as it appears to be Romero’s return to independent filmmaking, and he seems very excited about the work.
And hey, if George Romero is excited about something, then any self-respecting horror geek would be excited about it too.

Parting shot: Asia Argento (daughter of legendary Italian director Dario Argento; who starred opposite Vin Diesel in XXX and headlines the highly anticipated La Terza Madre) is Slack, the nominal love interest here.
Also, appearing in zombie cameos are long-time Romero collaborator and special make-up effects guru Tom Savini, as well as Shaun of the Dead duo, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright.

Parting shot 2: A review of The Ring Two can be found in the Archive.

(Land of the Dead OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

(The above is an altered version of the review originally titled “Dead Like Me.”)

MURDER PARTY
(Review)

It’s Halloween, and Christopher S. Hawley (Chris Sharp) is all set for a night of horror DVDs, but Sir Lancelot (an incredible Puff Snooty) plays chair hog and refuses to budge. So our hapless hero decides to Project Runway himself a costume and show up at a “Murder Party,” an invitation to which he found out on the street.
Thus begins the largely amusing events of Jeremy Saulnier’s Murder Party.

As an exercise in low-budget horror, Murder Party hits more often than it misses, with particular strengths being its unpredictability, and aim to confound audience expectations.
Of course, the reality of a film that makes it a point to surprise is the distinct possibility that the viewer may not necessarily be crazy about the directions the narrative takes. (The “truth” sequence is one that I’m still half-half on.)

All in all though, Murder Party is an agreeable little film that hits most of its marks, and does manage to have some thrills and some laughs and take some shots at the Williamsburg art scene.
Hardcore horror geeks may find Murder Party’s gore quotient a little on the low side. They may also find it a tad too talky. But if you’ve been ‘round these parts before, you’ll know I like my horror in a broad range, and Murder Party, though perhaps uneven, is nonetheless an entertaining way to spend an hour and 20 minutes.

Parting shot: Murder Party nabbed the Best Narrative Feature Audience Award at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival, as well as the Best Feature Film at the Vail Film Festival.

Parting shot 2: For the perversely curious, Murder Party is the first title under the Magnet Films banner, a subsidiary of Magnolia Pictures for “wild, unquantifiable and uncompromised” films. Magnolia Pictures is owned by American billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, who was recently booted off Dancing with the Stars.
Upcoming films under Magnet include Hitoshi Matsumoto’s Dainipponjin (Big Man Japan), Olivier Assayas’ Boarding Gate (starring Asia Argento), and Tony Stone’s “heavy metal Viking epic,” Severed Ways.

(Murder Party OS courtesy of impawards.com; image courtesy of radaronline.com.)

reVIEW (16)
INFERNO [2 of 2]

I, Varelli, an architect living in London, met the Three Mothers and designed and built for them three dwelling places, one in Rome, one in New York, and the third in Freiberg, Germany. I failed to discover until too late, that from those three locations, the Three Mothers ruled the world with sorrow, tears, and darkness.
Mater Suspiriorum, the Mother of Sighs and the oldest of the three, lives in Freiberg. Mater Lachrymarum, the Mother of Tears, and the most beautiful of the sisters, holds rule in Rome. Mater Tenebrarum, the Mother of Darkness, who is the youngest and cruelest of the three, controls New York.
And I built their horrible houses, the repositories of all their filthy secrets.
-- The Three Mothers by E. Varelli

That bit of information, given at the top of Inferno, lays out the mythology of “The Three Mothers” trilogy, and quite possibly, is the only important thing you need from this thematic sequel to Suspiria.
We learn this through Rose Elliot (Irene Miracle, who was in Alan Parker’s Midnight Express), reading from The Three Mothers. Rose suspects that she is, in fact, living in the very building Varelli built for the Mother of Darkness, and since this is a Dario Argento film, naturally, Rose is right.
Troubled, Rose writes a letter to her brother Mark (Leigh McCloskey, who would go on to spend considerable time on Dallas), a Musicology student who happens to be studying in Rome. But the letter is read by Sara (Eleonora Giorgi), who, impulsively enough, goes to the address designated as the home of the Mother of Tears, apparently now a library. And again, this being an Argento film, Sara meets a messy end.
Mark then calls Rose, who asks him to come to New York. And we’re back with Rose.
Thus, does Inferno’s “narrative” free-wheel its way from city to city, from character to character, as Argento draws us deeper into the mysteries of the Three Mothers and “their filthy secrets.”

Sadly, what is clearly missing from Inferno are the elements that proved to be the enduring strengths of Suspiria: Luciano Tovoli’s cinematography and Goblin’s music. In Inferno, Romano Albani (who would go on to shoot Argento’s Phenomena) is the cinematographer, while Keith Emerson (of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer) provides the score.
Neither necessarily does a bad job, but in light of the work done for Suspiria, this just seems lackluster.
Additionally, the lavish attention to detail that Giuseppe Bassan paid to the production design on Suspiria, is noticeably absent here. Nowhere in Inferno do we see sets as visually striking as those in Suspiria. (Yes, not even the underwater room where Rose drops her keys, the silly goose.)
And while Jessica Harper gave an excellent performance as Suzy Bannion, Leigh McCloskey’s Mark is a wooden bore. This is the sort of acting that would make Hayden Christensen proud. The audience is given no apparent point of identification with Mark, and we’re pretty much forced to go along for the ride for want of anybody else to peg as the narrative’s hero.

Suspiria may have had some flaws, but it’s otherwise an excellent entry in Argento’s body of work. Inferno, on the other hand, really does seem to lack the bite of its predecessor.
There was a certain clarity of vision that made Suspiria work, that made its dark Alice in Wonderland scenario resonate. Here, in Inferno, things almost seem mechanical, as if Argento were giving us exactly what we’d expect (or what he thought we’d expect).
We’re made to accept Rose’s fixation on Varelli as a matter of course, without any real explanation or sense of how that obsession came into being. It’s almost like the only reason she is so fascinated with Varelli is so the film can start.
And as the film unspools, the standard Argento strangeness plays out, but somehow, it just doesn’t engage. An antiques dealer (Sacha Pitoefi) meets an unlikely end while out drowning a bagful of cats during a total eclipse, a sequence whose only significance seems to be this: beware the hotdog men of New York.
Even the penultimate secret (the one beneath the soles of your shoes) doesn’t seem like such a big deal. And the ultimate secret, as the Mother of Darkness unveils herself, plunges the movie into Hokeysville.

Now, I am aware that Inferno has its share of defenders, who rhapsodize about the film’s nightmare logic, and even manage to find ways to justify the leaden acting and the bizarre climax. I’m coming from a place though where I can’t help but put Inferno right beside Suspiria, and come away thinking, “Man, Suspiria was a whole heck of a lot better than this.”

In the end, Inferno really doesn’t work for me, and its only saving grace is the establishing of the “Three Mothers” mythology (which Argento and Nicolodi—who appears in Inferno as the unlikely-named Elise Stallone Van Adler—based on Thomas De Quincey’s essay, “Levana and Our Lady of Sorrows”).
The idea that all the evil and misfortune in the world exists because of a trio of ancient Mothers roosting in the shadows of their “horrible houses” is a tantalizing thought. But that thought doesn’t really come across in Inferno, doesn’t crystallize into anything with any lasting significance. Instead, much of Inferno has the ephemeral nature of a bad dream: marginally unsettling while you’re experiencing it, but once the end credits have rolled, it doesn’t really stick.
The sense of sinister mystery so evident in Suspiria is gone here, replaced by the inexplicable (il)logic of a nightmare. It’s a biting disappointment, not just in light of Suspiria, but also given that the Mother of Darkness is described as the “cruelest of the three.” There was such an opportunity here to portray that cruelty, and with the indication that she was even more pitiless than Suspiria’s Mother of Sighs, I half-expected a Grand Guignol tour de force, but instead got this confused grotesque.
I can only hope that the upcoming La Terza Madre returns to the darkling territories Argento mapped out so expertly in Suspiria.

Parting shot: Since both Suspiria and Inferno end in fire, it only seems natural, for the purposes of symmetry, that La Terza Madre should end in conflagration as well. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Speaking of symmetry though, there is something curiously apt that La Terza Madre stars the product of Argento and Nicolodi’s romantic relationship: daughter Asia Argento, who’s starred in a number of her father’s films (including Trauma, La Sindrome di Stendhal, and Il Fantasma Dell’opera), but who is perhaps best known to the mainstream film-going audience from films like xXx and Land of the Dead. She was also in Sofia Coppola’s brilliant Marie Antoinette.
The flesh and blood offspring of the physical union of Argento and Nicolodi, starring in the final chapter of the “Three Mothers” trilogy, the celluloid offspring of the pair’s creative union: like I said, symmetry.
Also in La Terza Madre are Udo Kier (sadly, playing a different role from the one he had in Suspiria), and naturally, Daria Nicolodi. Claudio Simonetti (of Goblin) is doing the original score.

(Inferno DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

Thanx to Carla and Ed, for the plane ticket to New York.