D V D C R Y P T

MOTHER OF TEARS

Directed by Dario Argento
Written by Dario Argento, Jace Anderson & Adam Gierasch
Musical Score by Claudio Simonetti
Cinematography by Frederic Fasano
Cast: Asia Argento, Cristian Solimeno, Adam James, Udo Kier, Moran Atias & Daria Nicolodi

2007/102 mins/Color/Dolby Digital 5.1
2.35:1 anamorphic/English/Italy/NTSC Region 1

Review from the Dimension Extreme DVD

An ancient tomb is found in a cemetery near Rome. Sarah Mandy (Asia Argento) opens the urn that was found in it and unknown to her unleashes the demonic power of the world's most powerful witch, Mater Lachrymarum. Soon the city is plagued by suicides, murders, violence and mayhem... it is the second fall of Rome?

After years of anticipation by his dedicated fans, director Dario Argento concluded his horror trilogy known as The Three Mothers based on Thomas de Quincey's Suspiria de Profundis. The terror first started in his 1977 masterpiece, SUSPIRIA. It featured Mater Suspiriorum, the Mother of Sighs, which is the oldest of the Three Mothers. Thanks to the amazing cinematography and production design, SUSPIRIA featured an amazingly vivid color palette, particularly red (for blood), a loud and intense musical soundtrack by Goblin and some of the most brutal murder scenes ever made at the time.

The nightmare continued a few years later in 1980 with INFERNO. This time it was about the Mater Tenebrarum, the Mother of Darkness/Shadows, which is the youngest and cruelest of the Three Mothers. This thematic sequel took a different approach to the story but still remained dreamy, creepy and with a narrative that would confuse everyone. Now almost 20 years later Dario Argento closes the trilogy with one of the most anticipated genre film ever.

For me the anticipation for MOTHER OF TEARS was as big as when George Lucas announced the STAR WARS prequels (which turned out terrible) and when George A. Romero made a sequel to DAY OF THE DEAD (another huge disappointment). More importantly, if one look at Dario Argento's recent body of work, you will notice that like pretty much every director of his age the man simply isn't who he used to be anymore.

For me TENEBRE is Argento's last great film, not bad considering that at that time he made more amazing films then most directors will ever do in an entire career. While highly entertaining and containing Argento's signature, I found both PHENOMENA and OPERA to be a little under whelmed. His BLACK CAT segment in TWO EVIL EYES was something I'd rather forget but TRAUMA was really the beginning of the end. First of all, Argento simply shouldn't work within the American way of filmmaking. It doesn't fit his style and vision. Secondly, from then on he pretty much cast his daughter in all of his films... terrible idea as even though she's beautiful, Asia is simply not a good actress.

THE STENDHAL SYNDROME looked like a step back into the right direction but the terrible computer generated FX, poor storytelling and Asia's poor performance really hurt the film. The less said about THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA the better... this will probably remain Argento's worst and most hated film ever. SLEEPLESS (NON HO SONNO) had some great giallo moments, but featured some of the worst performances ever. THE CARD PLAYER first seemed like a bad joke from Argento but quickly became an insult, seriously what was he thinking? DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK and his two MASTERS OF HORROR episodes didn't helped bring faith in his work either. With all that in mind and knowing that he hired the people behind the TOOLBOX MURDERS remake to write one of the most anticipated genre film ever there was simply no way he would deliver the goods. Unfortunately I was right...

Within minutes you'll want to slap Argento for missing this one so badly. It is both a frustrating and insulting experience of going through the whole 102 minutes of MOTHER OF TEARS. Poorly written, it cheaply tries to ties in things with SUSPIRIA, Mater Lachrymarum summons the witches of the world (all 8 of them... are they serious?), are we supposed to believe that when the end of the world happens we'll get a few fights and suicides (this is happening everyday around here), an Obi-Wan Kenobi appearance (oups, I meant the ghost of Daria Nicolodi), Asia Argento, the very anti-climatic ending.... seriously I could go on forever about what and why I hated this film. The only good thing about it was the very graphic murder scene, probably Argento's goriest but as a whole it’s too late. I strongly believe that if someone one had directed this film, no one would even waste saliva talking about it, yeah its that bad!

Genius Products, Dimension Extreme, and the Weinstein Company have joined together to release MOTHER OF TEARS Unrated on DVD. The film is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio and it is anamorphic. The colors are well saturated, clear and sharp. It’s a nice transfer with no compression, deep blacks and vivid reds. The English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track is loud, crisp and clear, too bad that Claudio Simonetti's score isn't up to what he used to compose back in the days. English and Spanish subtitles are available.

'The Making of MOTHER OF TEARS' is an interested 32 minutes featurette with interviews with the cast and crew including the drop-dead gorgeous Mother of Tears herself Moran Atias. We also get many cool behind-the-scenes footage, a look at the world premiere and fans talking about Argento and his films. 'A Conversation with Legendary Filmmaker Dario Argento' is an 8 minutes interview with the director about his latest film. We also get the US trailer and Italian teaser and trailer for HELL RIDE, WAZ, ROGUE, INSIDE. The film is separated in 16 chapters, features music and animation on the main menu and comes in a keep case with an inlay card.

(Original title: LA TERZA MADRE)

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