Mother of Tears DVD review by Vittorio Carli

“Mother of Tears” is one of the most recent and most memorable films by Dario Argento, one of the supreme masters of Giallo cinema (an Italian genre which combines suspense, eroticism, and frequent bloodletting).

The film is a repulsive, excessively gory, revolting, junky, garish, and completely implausible piece of hokum, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off the screen for an instant. It also moves quickly, plus it is visually inventive, and has some unforgettable fright scenes and gore effects.

“Grindhouse “provoked a similar reaction in me, perhaps because both of them are stylish, beautifully shot cinematic works which walk the tightrope between trash and art. Where else can one enjoy the irrational if not cinema? When one of Argento’s mentors, the great surrealist director, Luis Bunuel, was asked what he would do if he had one day of life he replied, “Give me two hours a day of activity, and I'll take the other twenty-two in dreams.”

Like Argento’s other films, “Mother of Tears” has an abundance of visual style and minimal narrative logic. But “The Mother of Tears” gets stronger as it gets increasingly irrational. As the film builds, it makes to viewer feel like he or she is trapped in a waking dream or a drug influenced bout of psychosis. Perhaps this is because the film was inspired by Thomas De Quincey’s “Suspiria de Produndis,” a poetic essay which included visions that were reputedly inspired by the English author’s frequent opium use. Go to http://dequincey.classicauthors.net/LevanaAndOurLadiesOfSorrow/ to see an excerpt.

“Mother of Tears” is the long awaited third part of the Three Mothers trilogy. The first one, “Suspiria,” was made in 1978, and it deals with a woman who tangles with a coven of witches. In the sequel “Inferno (1980),” a poet is attacked after she finds a book that tells about three evil mothers that rule the world through tears, sorrow, and darkness; and one of the mothers, Mater Tenebrarum (the mother of darkness) ends up dying in a fire because she is in a weakened state. In “Mother of Tears,” the third mother goes after an art restorer/novice white witch because she blames her for her sister’s death (so it is like the splatter comedy version of “The Wizard of Oz,” and it even has an Oz-like ending.)

The film begins (the opening is reminiscent of the original Karloff version of “The Mummy”) when a group of men unearth buried occult artifacts, and this unleashes an ancient supernatural evil. The contents are brought to a museum curator while he is on break, and the package is opened by his two subordinates , his daughter, Sarah (played by the director’s talented and charismatic, real-life daughter, Asia Argento ), and Giselle (played by the exotically alluring Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni ( Go to http://www.artinterviews.com/CoralinaCataldi-Tassoni.html to see my interview with her. )

Of course Sarah and Giselle open the box of artifacts (this always happens in horror film scenarios), and they unwittingly unleash a Pandora’s Box of trouble. Giselle accidently cuts herself with a paper cutter, and a drop of blood falls on the artifacts which revive, Mater Lachrimarum, the Mother of Tears. When Sarah is conveniently out of the room, a trio of hideous demons (aided by a sinister monkey) rip out Giselle’s tongue with some kind of torture device, and then they gut her like a fish, and strangle her with her own intestines. It’s one of the most jarring and disturbing sequences in a horror film since the original “Suspiria.”

Soon evil Satanic witches (not a peace loving neo pagan/earth mother type in the bunch) begin arriving from all over the world converging in Rome, so they can help the evil and beautiful Mother of Tears bring about a second age of witches We can recognize the witches instantly because they all look like models, have evil laughs, plus they wear miniskirts and lots of mascara. This sequence could have been called Goth girls gone wild.

Soon there is an epidemic of rapes, demonic possessions, and suicides in Rome which threatens to spread to the whole world, so the Vatican has to work overtime (the yard of one church is filled with zombie like possessed people that were presumably dumped there by relatives.)

Yet public transportation is running smoothly the whole time, and people seem to be traveling as if nothing is going on. This reminds me of the great line from John Updike’s “A & P” in which Sammy says, “I bet you could set off dynamite in an A & P and the people would by and large keep reaching and checking oatmeal off their lists ….” Argento could be commenting on the sheep like nature of modern city dwellers, but I might be reading too much into it.

There are plenty of other intended or unintended laughs. After Giselle is killed, Sarah tells the police that she saw her friends murdered by three deformed men and a monkey. After they (somewhat stupidly) believe that she’s to blame and not the supernatural. They are a little slow on the uptake.) They put out an APB on her, and a police chief expects other police to find her but his only description of her is ” She is 28 years old and her name is Sarah Mandy.”

The Mother of Tears considers Sarah to be her main opponent, and she kills most of Sarah’s friends and allies. The Mother blames Sarah for her sister’s death, and Sarah has also inherited some her real mom’s (she was a white witch) powers. Sarah’s mother (played by Asia’s real life mom, Daria Nicolodi) begins to help her from beyond the grave. Locked doors magically open for Sarah, and she finds out she can turn invisible and has other latent abilities.

After we are treated to a hypnotic extended sequence combining sex and cannibalism, (good fun for the whole family), the whole film climaxes with Sarah confronting the Mother of Tears (played by the well endowed Moran Atias made up to look like a pole dancer from hell) on her home turf. The ending is as over-the-top and silly as any opera conclusion, but it is completely satisfying. Buy the DVD today and join the roller coaster ride!

Argento is often criticized for reveling in violence toward women. But “Mother of Tears” includes horrible scenes of carnage including both men and women, so it can be argued that he is a misanthrope or at least an equal opportunity sadist rather than a misogynist.


The soundtrack which has mostly techno, metal and Bernard Hermann influenced stuff (composed by ex Goblin member, Claudio Simonetti) is a wonderful backdrop to the chaos in the film. The soundtrack which was mostly composed by Claudio Simonetti goes perfectly with the grisly goings on in the film. Particularly effective is the title track which plays over the final credits. Cradle of Filth, singer Dani Filth, menacingly whispers “She's our Mother of Tears/The more in mortal sin” in a sinister voice that sounds like it comes from underneath a tombstone. Hear the song at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bPTs43ORjY

The best way to see the movie is at midnight with a bunch of half drunk cult film connoisseurs. But it’s worth picking up the DVD which was put out by Extreme. The DVD is reasonably priced (under $20), plus it has some interesting extras. It has some informative interviews with Dario himself, his daughter Asia (who has become quite a star in her own right), and the striking Israeli actress, Moran Atias. Argento tells us in an interview that one of the best gross out gore effects (it’s a scene where an Asian witch has a door slammed on her face until her eye shoots out across the room) was actually an accident.

Argento is clearly a fine horror director, but everyone on the DVD talks about him as if he is a combination of Antonioni, Da Vinci, and Mother Teresa. Clearly not all of them are in on the joke. The DVD is available through Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Tears-Asia-Argento/dp/B001AR0D6

It’s debatable whether the film’s laughs are intentional, but it really doesn’t matter in the end. “Mother of Tears” qualifies as an underappreciated, unqualified camp classic. It’s a deliriously demented dream film, and a sublime piece of horror kitsch. I haven’t had so much guilty pleasure watching a film since “Grindhouse.”