Mother Of Tears, Or; Where Did Dario Argento Go Wrong?

I'll pick 1987. (or was it rhetorical?)

I partly blame Adam Gierasch and Jace Anderson. They write more like fans than actual legitimate talents.

Having just watched this over the weekend I am inclined to agree with everything said here. The whole thing is rather embarrassing. Hell, I enjoyed Inferno, this made me annoyed.

Edit: Answering the 'when he went wrong' question, I'd ask how many times did he actually go right? I love Suspiria but after that there are a lot of movies that are only so-so with some excellent moments.

Yeah, Argento doesn't have any kind of rock solid body of work. He has great moments.

I think one of his biggest problems is that he continues to cast his daughter, who isn't that strong of an actress in the first place (although many of Argento's great films have sub-par acting in them). The real issue is he continues to miscast her. Mother of Tears is a great example. What the fuck was she doing playing that part?

Mother of Tears isn't good, but I do think it has one or two effective scenes. It's nothing close to as good as Inferno, let alone Suspiria or any of his 70's and 80's masterworks. It's not even as good as some of his other recent works (like the Stendhal Syndrome, which is actually a good film).

I wouldn't go that far. The Bird with the Cyrstal Plumage, Deep Red and Suspiria are horror masterpieces and he's got at least a handful of other excellent films to boot. I'd certainly put him above a guy like John Carpenter, who's had somewhat of a similar career but is still respected as a film maker a lot more then Argento in certain parts.

I think we're on the same page here. I even like Two Evil Eyes enough. Actually Stendhal Syndrome has gotten better with time for me because it's a pretty brave film on stylistic and content levels. I look forward to the Blue Underground Blu-ray. Pelts, Jenifer, and Non hono sono are all watchable and entertaining enough, but Phantom of the Opera, The Card Player, and now Mother of Tears, are frightfully terrible. I missed a chance to interview Argento for the UK DVD release of Mother of Tears. I'm kind of glad I did now, because I would've just wanted to ask him why he hated me so much.

I rather like Inferno myself- the rats scene is peculiar, yes, and the score's not a patch on Suspiria, but the underwater room alone makes the film remarkable.
Even at his best, though, Argento's patchy.

If I may turn the thread on its head for a moment, I've only seen Susperia and Deep Red (both were fantastic and wonderfully irregular).

Where else has Argento gone right, so I may further enjoy the insanity without getting burned out on missteps?

Great! Thanks!

Come on. The score is a fucking joke. The height of unintentional hilarity.

The sad thing is, now that it's relatively easy to get, we can easily see that FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET really isn't the lost masterpiece we once (in, say, 1993) hoped it might be.

I just shook my head for the whole movie.

Also, I always liked Profondo Rosso, though I haven't seen it in years. I really got to go and check it out again.

See Inferno immediately. I'm also a fan of Opera and Phenomena, which, if you liked Suspiria and Deep Red, you'll probably enjoy. The Argento/Lamberto bava teamup Demons is unmissable, but everyone has seen that at this point. Argento's protege Michele Soavi does good work, too. Check out Stagefright.

In this fan's opinion, non-fans should do as follows:

Must See: Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Profondo Rosso, Suspria
Very Damn Good: Inferno, Tenebre, Opera.
If you like those, see these: Cat O' Nine Tails, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, Phenomena.
If you're still interested: Two Evil Eyes, Trauma, Stendhal Syndrome, Pelts
Take Caution: Sleepless, Jenifer
Fans Only: Five Days of Milan
Avoid: Phantom of the Opera, Card Player, Do You Like Hitchcock, Mother of Tears.

After your done see everything Michele Soavi ever made: Stage Fright, The Church, La Setta, Cemetery Man, Uno Bianca, Arrivaderci Amore, Ciao.

I just the other day got my hands on Argento's first TV series. I've heard it's not very good.

I was always more indifferent to it myself, but it and that damn grim reaper effect are certainly the biggest weaknesses in the film.

Also, anyone liking Argento's early work should consider giving some of Bava a try, especially Three Faces of Fear/Black Sabbath or Kill Baby Kill

Tenebrae is a terrific film and the most underrated of his good movies. It's got an insane, blood-drenched finale that I enjoy very much.

Agreed that everything after Opera is shitsville.

Ironically Mario Bava constructed and set up the Death effects. I actually have no idea what you could possibly not like about them, though.

Something about them always struck me as underwhelming. I think it's the mask.

Fuck Yeah, Bava is the father of Italian horror. See everything he's done before you even bother with Argento.

I blind bought Mother Of Tears and wasn't disappointed. I wasn't thrilled to the skies, but I enjoyed it. Mostly for the gore set pieces. It did feel like an extended Masters Of Horror episode though.

I liked the simple way that Asia takes out the Mother Of Tears. Really ties in with the simple deaths for the other 2.

Oh, you meant the costume and make up. Bava set up the mirror shot and fake fire and stuff. I suppose the death costume does look a little 'costumey'. I guess I always told myself it was suppose to look like a costume or something.

maybe 'cause i just reread "From Hell" a month or two ago, but this movie played like a Gull-ish propaganda film. i mean seriously, the witch is killed by something resembling one of hawksmoor's steeples.

For me, Argento has always been hit or miss, quite often in the same film. I think Suspiria is his only film that stylistically works from start to finish. But there's enough fantastic moments throughout many of his other films to keep me coming back. Having not gotten Mother of Tears from Netflix yet, I can only judge his current state on his recent work I have seen.

Do You Like Hitchcock? did nothing for me, but I won't actually count it against him as it seemed a project he wanted to do to step outside his usual comfort zone. It doesn't work, but I think it says something about a director to take some chances in his waning years.

From his Master of Horror work, I really enjoyed Pelts. It had the right mix of sex, splatter and style, but I may have been won over by it in comparison to the other entries in the series. It outshone them all other than Miike's banned episode Imprint. His early episode Jennifer could have worked, but he took the completely wrong approach to it in comparison to the original short story. Steven Weber's miscasting didn't help either, but I chalked that up to him being involved in it's production and screenplay.

With that said, Even if MOT is a total failure, I'm still willing to give upcomming Giallo a try. I'm not willing to write Argento off just yet.

I couldn't help but think of the knife-weilding chimp from PHENOMENA when I read that. There's a team-up for the ages.

Last masterpiece? Opera. Last great film? The Stendhal Syndrome. I love everything up to Stendhal. Afterwards it gets shaky....

Phantom of the Opera - Beyond laughably bad.
Sleepless - Decent, but somewhat forced.
The Card Player - Pretty damn generic, other that a few interesting shots.
MoH: Jenifer - Tepid at best.
MoH: Pelts - Tepid at best.

Argento's protege's (Michele Soavi) horror output is fantastic though. Stagefright, The Church, The Sect, and Cemetery Man are all great. They might not all be masterpieces, but they're certainly creative and enjoyable. I haven't seen any of Soavi's more recent efforts (mostly TV movies) yet though. Last I read he's trying to drum up dough for a couple more theatrical efforts in our beloved genre though, so here's hoping he can!


My Argento "to watch" list still stands as the following:

- Four Flies On Grey Velvet
- Doors To Darkness
- The Five Days of Milan
- Wax Mask
- Do You Like Hitchcock?
- The Mother of Tears


Hopefully things will get better with Giallo. As it stands though, it seems that Argento and most of my favorite horror directors have all been stuck in a creative slump since the end of the '80s. Granted a few great films have popped out from them since, but overall the efforts have been lackluster compared to their past films. WTF happened to them all circa 1990?!?!? Seriously!

I finally caught the trailer for MOTHER OF TEARS and it has me curious. I'm so conflicted!

Dude, it's awful, but just watch it. Try to avoid spending any money on the experience.

C'mon, Mite. You watch so much crap already, how can you say no to an Argento movie no matter how lame it may be?
Watch it.
Do it. Do it. Do it.

Do it.

I'll throw it on the pile. What's one more flick in a Netflix queue of 400+? Maybe I'll use a free Blockbuster Rewards coupon on it someday.

Do it.

Yeah do it, you don't want people to think you're gay do you?

I just saw Trauma the other day after picking up the Dario boxset that Anchor Bay released, and was surprised to find that it was actually good. Stendhal Syndrome I thought was OK when I first saw it, and have yet to see it since. I think I've got to throw the new b-d of it onto the too watch pile. I haven't seen Phantom..., but don't feel like I really need to. Sleepless, pretty much put me to sleep every time I watched it, and I have DYLH and the Card Player in that box, but I'm relucant to watch either.

I've seen all his other films except Four Flies.... and will probably correct that soon enough.

Finally got around to seeing this and goddamn is it awful. Even with tremendously low expectations I was disappointed. It just gets incredibly boring after a while, which as always is the worst thing a movie can be. I'll take a bad movie as long as it's at least interesting. The gore is genuinely excellent but it's wasted stuck in with the rest of this thing. And really the general concept and plot aren't any worse than most of his other movies, so if you took this script back in time and let pre-lost mojo Argento take a crack it'd probably be good. But as it is... ugh. The glimmers of hope just make the ultimate failure even worse.

Jesus Christ, Do You Like Hitchcock? is shot about as well as some soft core Showtime crap. Drab as fuck. IMDB says it was shot on 35mm. Am I just looking at a shit transfer?

The settings are dull as well. It reminds me of student films where they try to set a moody horror film in their on-campus apartments. And enough with the fucking video store.

It was made for TV, so it might've actually been shot on video, but I don't know.

I have SWEET HOUSE OF HORRORS in the Netflix queue; I'll add DO YOU LIKE? for a "once-great Italian horror director slumming it on television" double shot.

Do You Like Hitchcock? was probably the worst Argento movie I could imagine, let alone see. I barely made it through the whole thing the acting is so bad (which says a lot for an Argento movie), and then the ending is so incompetent it made me angry. Simply awful. As a Hitchcock (and Argento) fan it made me want to answer "no" to the title.

FYI: It was intended as the first in a series of seven television mysteries from international filmmakers, but I just did a quick search and it doesn't appear any of the others were filmed (There was also an Italian Masters of Horror planned with contributions from Sergio Martino, Umberto Lenzi, and Lamberto Bava, but I don't know if that project ever came to fruition).

Slant creator Ed Gonzalez pulled together all of his excellent Argento reviews here:
http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/fe...rioargento.asp

The Italian Masters of Horror fell through financially, apparently... perhaps it was for the best but I would've liked to see if they could've hit a better shit to hit ratio than the US version... let's be honest, that would not have been aiming too high.

Just for the sake of this thread being brought back to life I thought I would toss me 5 favourite Argento films into the mix

1. Suspiria
2. Tenebrae (love that giallo stuff)
3. Deep Red
4. Bird With The Crystal Plumage (just beautiful)
5. Opera