Mother of Tears

The first two installments—Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980)—of Dario Argento's supernatural trilogy—were admittedly short on logic but long on the hypnotically extravagant, operatic style that mark the Italian director's best work. More than a quarter century later, Argento's Mother of Tears completes the triptych about three ancient sibling witches with a ludicrous plot revolving around the last of these sorceresses, Mater Lacrimarum (Moran Atias)—or “Mother of Tears”—who's released into the world after a mysterious urn is unearthed outside an Italian cemetery, and begins to summon followers from all over the world to Rome, where she will apparently initiate a new reign of evil. Her nemesis turns out to be a museum intern named Sarah (the director's daughter Asia Argento)—the offspring of a good witch—who must learn to use her inherited powers to defeat this third sister. What follows is a chaotic series of set-pieces in which various characters are eviscerated or bludgeoned to death while Sarah is stalked by would-be assassins, with the whole shebang capped by a hilariously over-the-top final showdown. Unfortunately, the stylistic mastery that was evident in the first two installments of the trilogy is absent in this risible clunker, which seems more like a joke than a dramatic conclusion. Not recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a 33-minute “making-of” featurette, an eight-minute conversation with filmmaker Dario Argento, and trailers. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a disappointing film.] (F. Swietek)