After a polarizing debut at the 2007 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, Dario Argento’s The Third Mother (aka Mother of Tears) is getting a theatrical release (albeit a very limited one) in the United States. Below was my reaction to the film at TIFF last year, here shameless pilfered out of the Twitch review archives.

Where to start with the latest Dario Argento exercise in baroque phantasmagoria? This is the very-late-to-the-party conclusion of his “Three Mothers Trilogy” started in 1977 with the spectacular Suspiria. (Inferno was to follow 3 years later before a 27 year gap!) As painful as it is to write this, there is nothing on offer in Mother of Tears for folks outside of the cult-of-Argento or gore-hounds looking for a few inventive kills. This may very well be an indication that Argento’s brand of horror was of its time and place (the 1970s and 80s) and ill equipped to survive in the 21st Century (admittedly, this is something that Argento fans have been lamenting for coming up on a two decades). The old is not destined to be re-purposed to the new; in fact, there is something tragic when the supposed return-to-form of one of the great masters comes off like an ill-conceived parody of his own work.

Two interns, Sarah (Asia Argento) and Giselle (Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni) foolishly open an ancient urn shipped priority courier from a catholic priest with a letter marked with some urgency that the package is for the Museum director’s discretion only. Within the opening minutes, demons are on the loose, blood is splattered on the wall, and a creepy little monkey (aren’t they all?) is prowling the halls of Romes Museum of Ancient Art. It is all rather abrupt, but the elements are creepy, and the gore is effective (even shocking in its brutal misogyny – Dario seems to have a strange relationship with his daughter subjecting her to what he does) . Daria Nicolodi’s (The director’s life-partner) disembodied voice which aids Sarah’s escape from the museum is further evidence that great things are to come.

But.

When witches start flying, driving and walking into Rome looking like leftovers from a 1980s glam-rock concert, well, things get rather silly over scary. Argento seems to have trouble visually with the scope of terror incited by the opening of the urn, and the subsequent release of the titular Über-witch, The Mother of Tears. The cops think Sarah is a nut with her explanation of demons and creepy-monkeys, yet the city is truly tearing itself apart. One of the last remaining exorcist specialists in Rome (a hammy Udo Kier) keeps a collection of possessed zombies in his back courtyard, murder, rape, and a surprisingly lengthy smashing of a car are shown in montage, yet the mocking detectives are intent on following around Sarah anyway. There are mothers casually tossing their infants off bridges (and because this is an Argento film, the baby has to smack the foundation a few times before losing a limb on the way down) in broad daylight, yet airports and bus stations are curiously unsuspicious of flamboyant goth-witches loudly cavorting about with violence sparkling in their eyes. So much for post 9/11 air-travel paranoia. On that note, Mother of Tears makes a real case for Italy’s progress in an urban apocalypse situation. Even though the city is on fire, public transit is still operating smoothly and efficiently, shuttling the main characters around to different locations to get tidbits of exposition from cameoing Argento regulars. Any weight or potential gristly horror in the well executed splatter moments is lost in the silliness of the affair. If this is Peter Jackson or Jake West making a splatter comedy, that is one thing, but this is Dario Argento. Crushed under the expectations of his own reputation.

Even ignoring the less-than-stellar acting, plotting and spatial inconsistencies (a laundry list of epic proportions) throughout Mother of Tears, when the Claudio Simonetti score kicks into high gear and Sarah, newly armed with her ghost-mothers advice and spiritual powers goes in to kick some witch-heiny, there is a moment when all could be forgiven. But this is squandered by the bargain basement look (wildly imaginative set design being one of the hallmarks of Argento’s work) that makes the second-coming of evil look like a basement hair-band video, complete with power-talisman frock passed around like that gaudily stained rag your sister bought at a Poison concert when she was more than a little wasted. The big show down ends with a whimper (it was that easy?) and a bang (a big special effects moment) to a final matted shot that confirms, that yes, this is a parody.