[Mother Of Tears]
Plot:When a young woman named Sarah and her friend Giselle unseal a mysterious urn, it soon becomes a fatal mistake. Now...Sarah is on the run through Rome from mysterious occult forces as Rome itself is thrown into chaos by a rash of suicides and violent crimes. Sarah must now uncover the truth about her mysterious past in order to defeat the greater evil that is coming.

Cast:Asia Argento, Udo Kier, Philippe Leroy.

My Thoughts:Certainly has the Argento charm.

Review:"Mother Of Tears" is the long awaited third film in Dario Argento's famous trilogy which began with "Suspiria", and was followed by "Inferno". The film follows a mysterious urn, which is dug up during an excavation. The urn is then set to Rome Italy for study, where an archeologist named Sarah (Asia Argeto) gets her hands on the mysterious object, and proceeds to study it, alongside her friend Giselle. However, when Giselle is brutally murdered before Sarah can even start to background check the artifact, she begins to realize that something sinister lurks within the urn...and it has it's sights set specifically on her.

"Mother Of Tears" definitely feels and looks like an Argento film. It has the Italian setting, the use of some Italian dialogue, and alot of bloody moments. Then there's also the strange, creepy, and weird moments which Argento is famous for adding into his brand of horror films. The story of the movie is intriguing and very eerie, as it follows the third witch of the "Mother" series...The Mother Of Tears, a witch who thrives and derives her powers from the pain, suffering, and death of others. Along with the power to drive people to murder, suicide, and madness...she also has many followers, including a group of monsterous hunchback druids which we don't see much of in the movie, but they certainly make an impact early on.

The film basically puts Dario's daughter Asia on the run for most of the movie, after her friend Giselle is murdered...Sarah manages to escape and becomes the focal point of all of the mother's followers, as well as a few witches. Which is the subplot of the film, as a wave of violence and death sweep through Rome...thanks to the mother of tears, at the same time...numerous black witches (witches who dabble in the black arts) are arriving in town to join the mother of tears in ushering in a new dark age in Rome.

The movie doesn't explain this plot point very much, but it does just enough explaining to make things understandable and to add just another chilling cog into the mother's master plan. Along with all of this, Sarah has to go on a journey of self-discovery through all of ths madness happening around her, with strangers, as well as people she knows and loves dying all around her. The jist is that Sarah has to summon her own abilities and powers so she can defeat the mother of tears. And to do this, she must contact her long deceased mother.

This plot point doesn't work out in the film too well however, and to me atleast...it came off as way too cheesy and poorly done. While it would've made alot of sense to include this as a subplot in the film, the way it was pulled off and used wasn't that great. Blood and gore fans will certainly enjoy this movie, as along with it's very classical-horror influenced story, it also pours on the blood and gore. People have their throats slashed, ripped out, guts are devoured, etc. etc. You get the picture, it's a very "messy" time indeed.

Asia Argento does an excellent job in her role as Sarah, and there's one moment early on in the film where her character makes a very smart decision to remove an article of clothing while trying to escape a group of attackers. Argento, who doesn't carry alot of horror films, was given the opportunity to do so in this movie, and did very well I think. But in my estimation, any character that doesn't annoy me is always a good one, and in this movies case...Sarah didn't annoy me.

If there's one weakness "Mother Of Tears" has, it's the ending...which after all of this build up to the confrontation between Sarah, and the mother of tears...we get really a flash in the pan of sorts. And instead of going out like a lion, the movie goes out like a kitten. While the climax delivers the blood, gore, and graphic scenes Argento films are known for...the battle between good and evil comes off as very anti-climatic, and empty, rather than the major league battle I was expecting. But beyond that, "Mother Of Tears" has Argento's fingerprints all over it, and it really delivers an entertaining, disturbing, and unsettling tale of black magic, evil, and witchery.

Positives:High levels of blood and gore, very graphic deaths, unsettling story, great performance by Asia.

Negatives:A very wimpy ending, the Sarah's mom subplot wasn't handled very well.

Overall:Great film with flaws that don't hurt it too much.





( Talk about it in the Forums!)



( Back to the main page)