Shlock and blood flow in 'Mother of Tears'
Source: Boston Globe (Original Article)
Movie review
Shlock and blood flow in ‘Mother of Tears’
Evil monkeys play a part in Dario Argento’s horrorfest, “Mother of Tears.”
(FRANCO BELLOMO/MITROPOULOS FILMS)
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By
Wesley Morris
Globe Staff
/
June 6, 2008
A reader recently wondered why I continue to review horror films if don’t like them. But it was never a question of my liking them (I do). It’s a matter of too few of them being made by the Italian director Dario Argento. His new bloodbath, “Mother of Tears,” traverses the same trashy terrain as the average horror movie. It begins with a lot of stock satanic imagery, ye olde demonic choral chanting (complete with a voice that hisses, “moootherrrr”), and the words no opening-credits sequence is complete without: “And Udo Kier.”But the average horror-thriller seems average only because - starting with 1970’s “The Bird With the Crystal Plumage” and culminating with 1975’s “Deep Red,” 1977’s “Suspiria,” and 1982’s “Tenebre” - Argento set a standard a lot of moviemakers are desperate to surpass. It’s not simply that he’s crazy about gore and supernatural hokum. It’s that he understands that storytelling is both an art and a craft. His filmmaking carries you along on the illusion of effortlessness; amusement, suspense, a certain elegance follow.”Mother of Tears” is deceptive that way. Argento’s not at all at his formal best, but for all the strangulations by intestines, evil monkeys, and hellish orgies, the film really is wondering about the great questions: Is there, for example, a higher power pulling the strings? This is the sort of philosophical questions an art restorer-slash-archeologist might find herself asking, and so Sarah Mandy, the film’s hotly pursued art restorer-slash-archeologist played by the filmmaker’s fearless daughter Asia Argento, asks.Sarah does that while evading the hell that breaks loose after she and a co-worker open an compare credit card ancient urn. Suddenly, Rome is suffering …continue reading