Mother of Tears (DVD)
Reviewed by Uncle Creepy
Starring Asia Argento, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, Valeria Cavalli, Udo Kier, Philippe Leroy
Directed by Dario Argento
Distributed by Dimension Extreme
We waited what seemed like forever for Dario Argento to complete his Three Mothers trilogy, and with Mother of Tears he has done just that. After nearly three decades of anticipation the puzzle is finally complete. It’s just too bad the final piece of it sucks so bad.
Sarah (Asia Argento) has just made the mistake of opening a chest that unleashes a malevolent entity in Rome, the Mother of Tears. All of a sudden people start losing their minds. Violence erupts everywhere. It’s primal, it’s brutal, it’s everything we could want! Once letting the proverbial black cat out of the bag, it’s not long before Sarah realizes that in order to vanquish the world’s last and most powerful witch, she must use her own untapped magical abilities.
This should have been a battle of epic proportions filled with all manner of violent sorcery. Instead …
***SPOILER ALERT***
… despite everyone and their grandmother telling Sarah she must use her powers to defeat the witch, upon confrontation all she does is use a spiked curtain rod to disrobe her. That’s it.
***END SPOILER***
Are you kidding me? What in the world did I just watch? The ridiculousness doesn’t end there either. There is nothing about this flick that seems even moderately Argento. Gone is the dreamlike atmosphere, nowhere to be found is his skillful use of color, and to top it all off, Asia spends most of her time wandering around and giving her least engaging performance ever while asking people to “help” her because she “doesn’t understand what’s going on”. I kid you not. Mother of Tears feels like Argento doing a bad imitation of himself.
The movie’s only saving grace is its violence and overall absurdity. Things fly so far off the tracks that the average viewer will end up sitting through this just because it’s so ludicrous that it ends up being funny instead of scary. I can drone on and on for hours about what’s right and wrong with this flick. In fact, check out our initial Mother of Tears review here for more details. Plagiarize pretty much nails it on all counts though he’s way kinder than I would have been. On to the special features …
I’m pretty sure even Dimension Extreme knew it had a stinker on its hands as all we get are two trailers and two featurettes. Things kick off with a thirty-minute making-of in which we get standard cast and crew interviews coupled with some behind-the-scenes footage. From there you’ll find a seven-minute long interview with Dario that will almost make you want to watch this crap again. It’s as if your heart is telling you to like something your brain knows sucks.
I wanted this to be great. Hell, I would have settled for just above average. This just sucks. All of the key elements are in place — a solid story, great gore F/X, good sound work …. everything except Dario. The blame for Mother of Tears being as bad as it is falls squarely on his shoulders. This is one nightmare there is no waking up from.
Special Features
2 out of 5
Special Features:
2 1/2 out of 5
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