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Sarah works at
a museum and receives some ancient
artifacts one day. Together with her co-worker she
opens the package up and unleashes a terror that she
could have never imagined. Soon enough violence and
hatred starts to spread over Rome like a virus while
witches from all over the world are trying to get
Sarah killed. Now, Sarah must use her psychic powers
to conquer the mother of tears (the main witch)
before it's too late.
Reviews have been extremely mixed towards Dario
Argento's final addition to the Three Mothers trilogy.
Some movie critics have claimed that it's a great
way to end a spectacular trilogy while some say that
it's an abomination and that the master of horror
needs to retire. Where do I stand? Well, sadly I'm
going to have to agree with the negative reviews and
say that it's probably time for Argento to retire.
Dario Argento is one of the best horror directors
ever, there's no doubt about it, but recently it's
just been going down-hill. His early works, such as
the previous two movies in the Three Mothers saga,
were suspenseful, gory, original, clever, classy and
even somewhat disturbing. Mother Of Tears does have
some of these elements in it, but not the important
ones. There's not a single even remotely suspenseful
moment to be found in here.
We get lesbians, boobs and over-the-top gore (not CGI
made) but the story feels old and pretentious and
there's nothing classy about this film at all. This
really is as campy and cheesy as it gets and there's
simply too much going on for the viewer to be able
to stay interested. This movie opened to pretty good
numbers in Italy, only to drop 80% in its second
weekend, I'm thinking that it wasn't due to the fact
that all Argento fans saw it the first weekend but
that it got such terrible word of mouth that everyone
simply stayed away from it.
Argento's directing feels pretty mediocre, unfortunately,
and the acting is, to say the least, uneven. This also
goes for the usually terrific actress Asia Argento
who simply can't seem to handle the scenes were she
has to play vulnerable. Uneven, a great word to
describe this movie with actually. The pacing goes
up and down, the story has so many subplots that you
get lost pretty quickly and the ending is beyond words
(and not in a good way). Meanwhile, there are some
scenes that are absolutely terrific like when Asia
has to crawl through a swamp of skeletons but these
moments go by way too quickly and never get the chance
to really shine.
I did learn a few things from this movie experience
though; witches laugh frantically all the time (I guess
girls DO just want to have fun), getting a spear
shoved up your vagina doesn't kill you (it just makes
you stronger), if you concentrate hard enough you
may be able to summon your dead mother and speak to
her floating, rainbow-coloured spectre. Yes there
are indeed many lessons to be learned in here and
the biggest one probably is that you should quit while
you're ahead. Mother Of Tears was a huge disappointment
and I can't believe it's getting some rave reviews
out there because it simply doesn't deserve it.
I love Argento with all my heart but I know a turd
when I see one and this one was a bit of a stinker.
Well it doesn't disappoint in this department. We get
a mouth ripped open, guts, a bashed in head, a slashed
throat, an impalement and so much more.
I really miss the old synthesizer music that created
a great atmosphere in Dario's old movies. This time
he's resorted to generic choir music and a very
forgettable suspense score that fails to deliver.
It's a disappointment. I'm sorry but it really is.
This, to me, was just extremely tacky and in poor
taste. Sure, it had a spark of the old master in it
but it never got a chance to really shine through.
You'd think that he'd be able to pull this movie off
since he's been planning it for about 30 years or so
but I guess not.
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