Mother of Tears - Will's Review

And so, we bid farewell to the Three Mothers Trilogy - Meh.

Sorry for the delay by the way - I've been struck down with a nasty (and rather persistent) cold; In fact, I have been toying with the idea of giving this one a second watch-through before reviewing it, feeling I may have missed something. On reflection though, looking back at the other two films in the trilogy  a clear head is likely to have made little difference.



All that said, I'll keep this very brief, as I still feel like crap.

The "Mother of Tears" is revived when her remains are found and examined by archaeologists  and she sets too taking over Rome - and with no small success; seeming hours (at most a few days) after her resurrection  the city is crawling with witches (who look like nothing more than a very large, "The Craft" themed hen night).

The Main character (who's name I forget) is assisted by the ghost of her mother (a white witch) and the whole thing is really kind of hokey.

Worst of all; it doesn't feature any of the touches that make Argento so watchable - the cinematography is below par, the trademark primary colours and odd lighting are no where to be seen, I didn't notice any insects foreshadowing death scenes, and the whole thing (gore effects aside) looked incredibly cheap - due in part to the fact that it clearly wasn't shot on film (given its age I'd say it was DV, but if you told me it was shot on video, I'd believe you).

Some great deaths, including a woman being strangled by her own intestines; other wise a below-average effort.

Suspiria - Lisa's Review

I have watched this movie before, many years ago.  I have little recollection of it, so today I have watched it in stages as I fear I'll not get it watched at all this week otherwise.

This is going to be a pretty short review... it probably should be a pretty long one were I trying to make sense of what I have watched, but you know what?  I've decided this one isn't to be made sense of... at least not in my current state.

This is a very surreal movie.  Something you should know about me?  I hate surrelism.  I can't be arsed trying to work it out, trying to see the imagery and what it represents, trying to be all arty farty about it.  Give me a movie with a bloody storyline where I don't need a university degree to work out whats going on and I'm happy.



The surface plot is simple enough but you can tell you are meant to see and feel much more than a basic horror plot here, with colours used to emphasis certain people, scenes and moods.  The cinematography is excellent.  Some parts are absolutely beautiful to watch, but that's very much at the expense of whats going on for me.  There's only so much nice wallpaper, fancy lighting and artsy horror I want to watch.

I will give major kudos for HOW this movie is shot and how it looks, but it simply isn't the sort of thing I like or would ever chose to watch myself.  Rather than re-watch numerous parts to make sense of the movie, like I usually would... right now, I'm feeling like death warmed up, so the sofa is calling me.

I won't give this movie an 'Avoid' as it doesn't deserve it and I know a lot of people will love this movie.  It just misses the mark in a big way with me.   I'm not an Argento fan.  I didn't particularly enjoy Inferno when we watched and reviewed it for the Nasties challenge and I doubt I'll be spewing pleasantries when we move onto 'The Three Mothers'.  This simply works for some people and doesn't for others.

I'm one of the ones who quite simply can't be arsed.

Suspiria - Will's Review

Argento; primary colours, Goblin soundtrack, beautiful set pieces, and a paper-thin plot (that doesn't make much sense anyway).

This time, an American student (The impossibly cute and perpetually surprised-looking Jessica Harper) has travels to Europe to join an exclusive Ballet school... Which turns out to be the front for a much more sinister operation.

As this is one of the 'Three Mothers' trilogy you've probably figured out by now that (Mild spoiler) it's witches.

Head witch is the Directoress of the school, who is allegedly away on business, but (bigger, but not huge, spoiler) we soon learn that she is still in the school when (I shit you not) one of the students recognises her snore!

Like I said, the plot is pretty much bobbins, but it has to be forgiven as parts of it are a joy to watch - in particular a scene in which a winged creature attacks someone off-screen - we never see the beast, only glimpses of it's shadow, but it's one of the most effective 'monster' scenes I've seen in a while!

For its visual busty, I'm leap eared to overlook the nonsensical / scarce plot, and give this one a thumbs up - it's no more than I did for Fuluci's "The Beyond".