Mother of Tears review by The Grim Ringler

MOTHER OF TEARS

It’s never fun to see your heroes fall on hard times but worse yet to see them walk foot by foot off of a professional pier. How can director Dario Argento, a legend in the horror genre, an innovator in the film world, and a man who helped bring horror movies into the art house, fall to such ruin? Argento, like so many other horror directors of the seventies and eighties has fallen onto hard times. For Argento it’s as if he’s lost his touch. Whatever magic the man had as a story teller is gone and without his mastery of visuals, well, we’re left with Mother of Tears.

MOTHER is the third film about the Three Mothers, three witch sisters who have set up homes in three regions of the world, infecting the very earth which their homes occupy. MOT deals with the remaining mother, Mater Lachrymarum, who lives in Rome. When she is freed of the bonds that have held her dormant for so long the mother’s reign of terror begins but first she must gather her army of followers. When a young woman who works with antiquities witnesses the brutal murder of her co-worker she is suddenly thrust into a world she could never imagine existed. As the Third Mother gathers her forces the young antiquarian investigator watches in horror as suicide and murder sweeps through her city and she is the only person who can stop it. Harnessing heretofore unknown powers of her own, the young woman finds herself hunting down the Third Mother in the vain hope of stopping her before it’s too late.

I wish I could give you more of a detailed breakdown of the film but, honestly, I can barely even remember the damn thing. It’s as if it was a sort of film colonic and it rushed in, did what it had to do, and then rushed right the heck out and that was that. I watched this with a friend (he procured the bootleg of it) and neither of us could fathom the ridiculousness of the film. A great example is that after the director’s daughter, actress ASIA ARGENTO, sees her friend brutally ripped to shreds by some crazed killers, she proceeds to go to the house of her boyfriend and then to laugh and have fun playing with his kid. WHAT? Are you kidding me? It’s that sort of logic that fills the film to overflowing. For some reason, in Argento’s mind all witches are crazed, obnoxious lesbians that dress as if they were extras for THE CRAFT. From the beginning to the very murky end, MOTHER OF TEARS is chock full of crap. To see someone with such skill in shooting films and ON film brought down to the level of having to shoot with equipment that isn’t up to par is just sad, but worse is to see the man make films down to that level. This is just a poor, poor film, and that’s a shame. This was to be the third and final chapter telling the tale of the Three Mothers and it was a film that I and a lot of fans of Argento were waiting for over a decade to see and this is what we got. Awesome.

I will say that yes, this is a gory film, and it’s a violent film, and oh lordy is it ever a sleazy film, but for all that it is, the one thing it isn’t…is GOOD. It’s a watchable film, for sure, and some may surely get a laugh out of it but I assure you that this, friends, is a rotten apple, and that’s a shame. What this will become is but a footnote to a once brilliant career and a talented director, but alas, a footnote that has a lot of company.

…c…


4 out of 10 Jackasses
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