Mother of Tears (aka La terza madre) (2007)

Mother of Tears

6/10

Mandatory WARNING ****** May Contain Spoiler Material *****

Ok, first off, when I searched to see if anyone else wrote a review for "Mother of Tears" I noticed at the bottom was the line 'Page generated in 1234164076.2203 seconds.' Now THAT is what I call precision! Forget the first few billion seconds, but by DAMN we are gonna' get that last 10,000th of second down! Sorry about that- I'm weird that way (I'm an engineer).

For all of my self-avowed horror-meisterness, until I caught a review of this somewhere else I did not know that the Mothers were a trilogy. I am ashamed and my ego is properly trounced. It has been a few years since I've seen "Suspiria" and "Inferno", so you will have to forgive me for lapses in the overall story. "Tears" did a nice job of either tying it all together or just reminding the audience about the whole mythology (like I said, I can't remember if this was laid out in the previous 2 films). Very cool mythology, by the way. Wiki has a nice write-up about it.

Before the review proper, I just got to say it has an evil monkey. I like monkeys, even if they are devil spawn. This movie got an entire point for having a devil monkey. Sue me.

On to the plot, as such. Freaky magic guy is buried with an "urn" (um, it really, really looks like a box to me, but maybe 'urn' is a codeword for 'box' in Italian(?)) after devastating half of all small villages in the world. Fast forward to the time of Catepillar backhoes, and the coffin and 'urn' are discovered. Priests are brought in, and after examination the head priest sends the 'urn' to an archealogist/historian with a letter saying "You are more equipped to deal with this than I am". Ah, hello Vatican? Ya know, it's Rome and stuff? The plot says so, so why not! In the most typical stupid, stupid tropes of horror films, since Michael (archy/histy guy) is out, one of his underlings decides to open the 'urn'. She does this with Michael's lover, explaining "we'll just look, and we don't have to tell him", even though it has a wax seal that she has to slice through. Of course, she cuts herself, releasing all kinds of boogety-boogety. And very nice boogety I must say! I soooo do not want to die that way. And here is the first appearance of the evil monkey tracking down Sarah (our protagonist, Asia Argento). She's not the smartest cookie in the can, but neither is the monkey, so it's a draw until supernatural intervention helps our gal.

We're about 15 minutes into the film. Didn't take long, eh? Now evil is loose, the cops are looking at Sarah, and everything is just peachy. Next up is a bunch of running away from evil stuff scenes, tracking down information scenes, and Sarah channeling her powers to become invisible scenes. Throw in baby carnage, eye-ball popping, throat slicing, and we're good.

***** Spoiler Time ******

What the heck is up with the alchemist? He has super magnifying glasses that can read a person's mind? Yet he's utterly useless except for giving Sarah a picture of the house that the Mother lives in? Then we have evil Michael (these guys see "Evil Dead"?) faking out Sarah? Do I need more question marks? This flopping is pretty bad right here. I know this has been broached before, but all you have to do is burn the damn shirt! All the crap about 'channeling your powers' for nothing. (Nice boobs on utter evil, by the way. Oh, and Asia in a shower is not too bad). Honestly, the escape sequence is utter crap, much like the sewer Sarah has to crawl through. The spire jamming through 30 feet of earth without cracking is pretty dumb, also. And can anyone explain the giggling at the end? I know that people like to relive tension after an intense situation, but they were laughing like someone just made a fart joke! Really killed it for me right there.

****** End of happy Spoiler Time *******

For those who didn't read the spoilers there is lots of searching for answers, more demon-like folk to beat, and the eventual showdown. Overall, pretty darn good. Pacing was quick, deaths were gory, and an unnerving sense of "offness" was built nicely. Sarah kind of vacillated between a real-life person (running) and movie person (no, no, no, no, save me!). Her accent slipped around a bit, but eh, it happens. The 'search for answers' part drug a bit. The disappointing part was the ending. It made close to no sense and felt very, very contrived, as if the screenwriter said "Damn, I just had a hippo eat someone's heart, how do I top that?!" (No, didn't happen.)

Tallies- boobs, many. Deaths, lots and nicely executed. Lightsabers, none. Definently a rental, could be a buy depending on your tastes. Not as good as "Suspiria", I'd say better than "Inferno", but the revealing of the backstory was about as good as the movie. I have to admit I'm fascinated by detailed backstories, so you may not care about that.

Overall- not Argento's best, but still tasty!