La Terza Madre (aka. Mother of Tears), dir. Dario Argento (2007)

NIKKI says:
Did somebody say this movie was Dario "back to form"? I'm sure I heard that prior to watching it. It's very true, at any rate. For the first time since discovering Tenebrae or whichever Argento I watched first way back when, I felt genuinely creeped out, by the story, the effects, the horror, and I genuinely cared for the woman in peril.

My god, how gruesome. New wave horror has nothing on Dario. The blood spatter here proves that old school horror/violence is still the most effective, even if you can tell the spike through the eyes is so totally fake. It just looks good. And I don't think much of it was CG, which is even better. The woman at the start stumbling around in her own intestines -- gross! But awesome.

The story wasn't bad, either. This is apparently the final film in the Three Mothers trilogy that includes Suspiria and Inferno. Here, Asia Argento plays the daughter of a woman killed by the Mother of Sighs from Suspiria. In this movie, she and a friend at a museum open an ancient urn, inadvertently bringing into this realm, the Mother of Tears. Asia must steel herself against the witch and her powers, which see the entire city turning on itself in horror and fury.

Asia goes to an old house to face off against the witch, ad stumbles across an awful party scene where the women are all chanting and singing for the one main witch in the little red dress. It's all so creepy and weird. Asia ends up swimming through a body-infested sewer, and -- ugghh -- it's just awesomely revolting.

But it never feels exploitative. I did find myself cursing Dario when not one, but TWO, babies found themselves at the receiving end of his horror vision, but that's Dario, I guess. Taking me places I don't want to go so sharply and so quickly that I barely have time to register it. These days, with the drawing out of the gore, they've just got it so wrong. It's so much harder to process Dario's type of violence that aims not to gross out, but to shock. It's fast, and it's mean. Just dare to watch the woman get her mouth ground open (AHHHH!), or the spike up the dress, or the spike through the gullet, or the poked out retinas. Snap, snap, snap.

This was a fitting conclusion to the director's weird vision.

3.5/5