[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Inferno (1980)

For a long long time my favourite Dario Argento film was Inferno's predecessor and first of the Three Mothers Trilogy, Suspiria, however during the last decade it's Inferno, the second of the trilogy that has become my favourite from the Italian maestro. The story follows a young man's (Leigh McCloskey...that was almost my review - The one with Mitch from Dallas) investigation of his sister's disappearance from her New York apartment, an apartment that was allegedly home to an ancient witch, one of the three mothers Mater Tenebrarum (the other two being Mater Lachrymarum and Mater Suspiriorum ). I wonder why Dario didn't call this one Tenebre? A title he used for an unrelated film two years later.

Inferno has everything Suspiria has and more. There's the trademark Argento gore, shot as stylishly as ever, like watching a painting created out of blood, together with a terrific score from rock legend Keith Emerson and there's the colours.

Suspiria is rightly lauded for it's use of colour. Reds that prove so vibrant that they are integral to the film's aura, yet Inferno is very much the same yet nowhere near as acclaimed in that respect. Inferno's use of bright pinks and blues, often in the same shot are every bit as stylish as anything Suspiria offers up, in fact to my eyes even more so as i think the colour palettes work even better here so much so that even dark night time scenes have a day-glo vibrancy to them.

As a whole the film is a hypnotic nightmarish descent into hell, perfectly encapsulated by the opening scenes as Irene Miracle's Rose takes a swim in a water filled basement trying to reach her keys and coming across a putrefying corpse in the submerged cellar. It's unnerving and highly claustrophobic and sets the scene of the terrors to come.

The Wolf Man (1941)

Universal's classic chiller is as influential as any horror film ever made as it pretty much sets the background lore of the entire werewolf genre. So much so that a verse quoted more than once in the film - "Even a man who is pure in heart, and says his prayers by night; May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright" - isn't an ancient poem from centuries earlier but a couple of lines at the time probably thrown together by screen writer Curt Siodmak.

Lon Chaney Jr in his most memorable role plays Lawrence Talbot who is attacked by a werewolf one evening and under the full moon himself transforms into the slavering beast.

The time-lapse make up of the werewolf transformation by Jack Pierce is outstanding whilst Siodmak's script beautifully explores the terror, torment and trauma of lycanthropy in a very sympathetic fashion as director George Waggner paces the film beautifully.

My favourite of the seven original Universal Monsters films.