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  #51  
Old 19th December 2011, 08:27 PM
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Originally Posted by Delirium View Post
I really like Mother of Tears too. It's not Argento at his peak, no, nor in the same league as Suspiria/Inferno (considering it's supposed to complete the trilogy). It's not scary either, and doesn't have the trademark Argento aesthetic.

But I can't say I didn't thoroughly enjoy it. It's campy, gory, fast-paced, fun, apocalyptic mayhem - a hark back to Italian horror at its most delirious and over the top. Suspiria and Inferno are perfectly crafted arthouse horrors. Mother of Tears is a somewhat sloppy unashamed b-movie, and works perfectly well on that front, with a genuinely entertaining performance from Asia. They're polar opposite films, but work in their own ways.

So I stand by that film! Despite the anticipation, the negative press I heard was overwhelming, but I loved every second. Enough to buy the DVD and the French Blu (damned forced subs!).

I'm no Argento apologist either - I found the Card Player quite dull, didn't like his Masters of Horror stuff, and Giallo just left me incredulous.

I heartily agree. I thought it was great fun.

I've never thought of myself as an Argento apologist, but reading on here has made me feel like just that. I simply don't find most of his films anywhere near as bad as almost everyone else seems to. I can only call Phantom Of The Opera and Giallo bad films. And thought Giallo was perfectly watchable, being ruined by Adrien Brody and a shoddy script not by Argento's job!

OK, so he pays the price for having made such good films early in his career, but you can say that of many directors, none of whom seem to get the battering that Argento does. Argento has not made anything anywhere near as bad as My Soul To Take or Cursed, for example, but where is Wes Craven's beating?

None of his latter films are as good as The Bird With The Crystal Plumage or Suspiria - but then not every Hitchcock was a Shadow Of A Doubt or Vertigo either. Most of his supposedly bad films, seem perfectly entertaining and very well crafted bits of low budget entertainment. Some of them (The Stendhal Syndrome, Sleepless...) are even better than that, and I suspect that time will do wonders for their reputations as it has for Inferno, Tenebrae and Opera - none of which were especially well regarded and were unfavourably compared to Bird, Suspira and Deep Red upon release.
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  #52  
Old 19th December 2011, 11:05 PM
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I heartily agree. I thought it was great fun.

Argento has not made anything anywhere near as bad as My Soul To Take or Cursed, for example, but where is Wes Craven's beating?

None of his latter films are as good as The Bird With The Crystal Plumage or Suspiria - but then not every Hitchcock was a Shadow Of A Doubt or Vertigo either. Most of his supposedly bad films, seem perfectly entertaining and very well crafted bits of low budget entertainment. Some of them (The Stendhal Syndrome, Sleepless...) are even better than that,
Like Hitchcock, even Dario's lesser films are quite watchable, and people will have their favourites amongst the so called lesser films. I adore The Trouble with Harry for example and i too think Mother of Tears is very good entertainment. On the other hand i really don't rate Trauma at all.

Sometimes i think people moan about his more recent output because they think thats the thing to do. Giallo and Mother of Tears must have had pretty good sales from the amount of people who say they are terrible. I would watch either of them again before seeing the extremely dull Cat O' Nine Tails. Thats just me though.

As for Wes Craven, he's just a hack in my opinion. Only seven out of his twenty nine films are any good. It could be eight but i haven't seen My Soul to Take.
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  #53  
Old 20th December 2011, 12:07 AM
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Okay, my turn to invoke the wrath of those who liked Mother of Tears. This is a review of the film I wrote for another site, and it will certainly offend fans of the film. Sorry!

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Throughout the 70's and 80's Dario Argento was the king of Italian cinema. Films such as Suspiria, Deep Red, Inferno and Tenebrae wowed audiences throughout the world with their sheer visual spectacle. The maestro, once dubbed the Italian Hitchcock, could do no wrong. However, in the late 80's, with the arrival of Opera, Argento began losing his touch. Whilst Opera is still held in high regard amongst genre fans, myself included, it was not well-received with Italian audiences. Throughout the 90's his career seemed to flounder, with Phantom of the Opera being a particular low point – not only a bad Argento film, but quite possibly one of the worst films I've ever seen. Stendhal Syndrome was certainly a step up from this disaster, but still bereft of the man's genius and again wasn't well-received. Things seemed to look promising with the arrival of Sleepless which, in my opinion, is a damn fine Giallo and shows that Argento is still capable of making great films. Then came The Card Player and the TV movie Do You Like Hitchcock? – both of which, if I'm honest, are mediocre Euro-thrillers. It was then with some excitement amongst genre fans that Argento was prepping the final instalment of the Three Mothers trilogy – preceding it were Suspiria and Inferno. But it was also with trepidation that the fan community awaited this film, considering Dario's recent track record. Would he be able to pull something special out of the hat? Well, the short answer is 'no'. But read on…

The Three Mothers are representative of the three faces of sorrow: sighs, shadows and tears. The title of each face, personified as witches, are Mater Lachrymarum, Mater Suspiriorum, and Mater Tenebrarum - Mother of Tears is concerned with Mater Lachrymarum. The film opens with the uncovering of an ancient burial site in Rome and a strange casket is discovered. The priest overseeing the reburial of the bodies in the cemetery takes the casket and sends it to the nearby museum to be examined. There, once the casket is opened, the malevolent force of Mater Lachrymarum is unleashed upon the world. Soon hordes of witches start arriving in Rome to celebrate the new birth of the Mother of Tears. Violence and lawlessness begins to erupt across Rome and it is left to Sarah (Asia Argento) to fend off and ultimately defeat this evil.

I know what you're thinking, you think it sounds great. Trust me, it isn't. It sounds better on paper than it does in actuality. The film itself is a muddled mess with a paper thin plot, and is executed so badly I can hardly put it into words. This didn't seem like an Argento film at all, but rather some cheap and shoddy b-movie that deserved to be hidden away in the straight-to-DVD section. His signature colour palette was absent: no soaring visuals, no hidden-but-obvious metaphors on screen and, finally, no talent in front of the camera. Even the gore set-pieces were badly handled and the usually reliable Sergio Stivaletti provided sub-par FX work. Claudio Simonetti's overblown score is just ridiculous and the script was so poorly written an infant could've penned it. If I heard Asia say 'What?' one more time I swear I was going to jump through the screen and kill her myself. Now, I know all this sounds rather harsh, but I'm an Argento fan, which makes this film all the more insulting. I know the genius he is capable of, so why is he delivering pap like this? I want the Dario Argento I love to make a film, not this shadow of his former self.

So where did it all go so wrong? I've no idea, really, the opening murder was very explicit and bloody and I was beginning to think 'Right, this is more like it' and then it just veered off into…nothingness. And that's the whole problem, the film is just…nothing. It goes nowhere, it doesn't even tell a proper story, it just sort of ambles along doing absolutely f*ck all. Daria Nicolodi's appearance is utterly laughable too, she pops up like Casper the Friendly Ghost (and almost looks like it too) to help her daughter along, but it's just utterly ludicrous. Don't get me wrong, horror movies are nonsensical at the best of times, but they do operate on some basis of logic, however silly that logic that may be. By comparison, The Three Mothers isn't working from any kind of cohesive logic and just flies around wildly from one improbable scenario to another. It becomes apparent that the writers who assisted Dario (Adam Geirasch and Jace Anderson) have absolutely no understanding whatsoever of the whole Three Mothers concept and tried to Americanise the whole thing, which resulted in this disaster of a movie. No offence, but I believe that Europeans have more of an intuition about the whole Gothic horror genre, being steeped in history as it is, which is the European's heritage – and make no mistake, the Three Mothers trilogy is gothic horror at its finest. Well, at least the first two parts were, anyway.

So, to sum up…erm…just avoid it. As far as I'm concerned the final instalment of the Three Mothers trilogy still hasn't been made, because this definitely ain't it. In fact, I am attempting to wipe all memory of it from my consciousness, it's traumatised me that much. I'm in shock – I can't believe that Dario would dare present us with this travesty as being the long awaited conclusion to this series. The film is certainly horrific, but for all the wrong reasons – and Asia's appalling performance is probably the most horrific thing about this film, sad but true. Sorry, Dario, but I know you can do far, far better than this. I can understand that there would have been budget constraints, so why then write in ambitious stuff like Rome erupting in violence and then simply show about three dudes smashing up a car. It's hardly apocalyptic and certainly doesn't convey what was intended. Then there's the hordes of witches arriving in Rome – apparently - but I only counted about five, all of which sported dire Goth garb and looked decidedly non-scary. Even the great Udo Keir ends up just being a parody of himself and he looks very out of place in this movie. I just cannot put into words how bad this movie is. Save your money – or buy an earlier Argento, if you haven't seen them; Suspiria is as good a place to start as any.

This film is inexcusable rubbish from a once-great horror/Giallo director. It's lamentable to see him come to this. I really hope for his sake that he comes back from this with something that will awe us once again. But I doubt it. I'd love to be proved wrong, though. In the final analysis, all I can say is avoid this and go watch one of his earlier, magnificent works – but not this diabolical mess of a movie. Sorry, Dario, I'm not sure I can forgive you for this. Did I say I hated this? Well I did. I never want to see this film again as long as I live. Harsh…but that's my reaction to it.
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  #54  
Old 20th December 2011, 09:46 AM
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Originally Posted by Daemonia View Post
Okay, my turn to invoke the wrath of those who liked Mother of Tears. This is a review of the film I wrote for another site, and it will certainly offend fans of the film. Sorry!
i thought you were been way too nice, its a shit film made even worse that its the end of a trilogy , its just plain awful
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  #55  
Old 20th December 2011, 12:56 PM
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And just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, he delivers Giallo. How low can he go? Will Dracula 3D be even worse again? Will I watch Dario's Dracula? Of course I will, but expectations are extremely low. Extremely low.
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Old 20th December 2011, 02:03 PM
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Default First poster for Dario Argento's Dracula

I will be looking forward to Argento's version of DRACULA when released on dvd next year
MOTHER OF TEARS was great gory fun, yes it had its faults, but a lot of 'critics' were asking where were the colours and visuals etc of his previous SUSPIRIA and INFERNO
Argento has said, he has moved on and is making his films HIS way
I found GIALLO disappointing, but was really expecting that
MOT on the other hand, despite the dumb reviews from the so called experts, I enjoyed nevertheless and sold the bare bones UK Optimum for the R1 w/extra
As its been said by somebody, even the great Hitchcock made bad films imo TROUBLE WITH HARRY, TORN CURTAIN, FAMILY PLOT, THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY etc
I still have a lot of his films on dvd/blu ray, the R1 2xdisc Universal Legacy dvd of VERTIGO being the best version around of my fave Hitchcock film
Argento has always been my fave horror director despite TRAUMA, THE CARD PLAYER and GIALLO
once again going to buy DRACULA.....
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  #57  
Old 20th December 2011, 04:06 PM
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I hear what you're saying, James. And as a film in its own right I might have been more forgiving. However, try this: watch Suspiria, Inferno and then Mother of Tears in immediate succession. You'll quickly see how it's gone to shit with the final instalment. It's an embarrassment to the trilogy. To conclude such a magnificent series with this turd is what I found most insulting.
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Old 20th December 2011, 04:55 PM
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This is the first poster for Dracula 3d as directed by Dario Argento.

It stars Rutger Hauer as Van Helsing, as usual Asia Argento has a lead role. The film is said to be very faithfull to the novel.

In my opinion the poster is a little underwhelming. What are your thoughts on the poster and the film, do we need another version of Dracula, if we do is Dario a good choice after his version of another classic novel in Phantom of the Opera.
****,a lot of thought and effort there eh?
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  #59  
Old 20th December 2011, 05:07 PM
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Can't say i was very impressed with the Mother of Tears either tbh. It felt more like a Troma film than an Argento. And the gore effects were quite frankly, ridiculous, esp the strangulation scene with the woman's intestines. Awful.

I'm still hoping that one day he'll find his form again, but i won't hold my breath.
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  #60  
Old 20th December 2011, 05:37 PM
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Nice review Daemonia. So did you like the film or not?
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