Mother of Tears, Redheaded Stepchild

jposter.net

A common complaint about legendary Italian horror director Dario Argento is that his directorial style being based around his visuals, instead of his story. With La terza Madre, Dimension Extreme’s "Mother of Tears", may have been his attempt to dispel this and surprisingly does not span beyond the gore that is associated with the genre, thus may have taken away the chance for its American distributor to claim some of their films as art.

Witches from all over the world are flocking to Italy’s capitol. Crime is rampant, mothers are murdering their children, and the only person who might be able to stop the rise of the Mother of Tears is Sarah (Asia Argento from XXX, Land of the Dead). She is the daughter of the white witch whose life ended during her battle with the Mother of Sighs (from Argento’s Suspiria). With latent powers inherited from her mother, no other person may be able to prevent the “Second Fall of Rome.”

Being filmed in English and not having the opportunities for the large scale shots Argento is known for, fans of the director might be disappointed in the conclusion to the "Three Mothers" trilogy. It does not seem as prolific as his other films, and the story is very linear. There is little mystery in the story, so the viewer does not have to think.

Not being forced to think may or may not be a bad thing. On one hand, the images might be considered more disturbing because there does not seem to be a motive for them. On the other, if there is no motivation, do they have to be so frequent? Does the audience have to bare witness to vivid deaths of more than one child? Without reasoning behind them, it can be declared tasteless, and even a waste of characters.

Alchetron.com - The Mother of Tears

Asia Argento delivers a great performance as the European-raised American lead, but with the accent, some might thing that it is what a Winona Ryder performance would be like if delivered immediately after the shoplifting incident. Otherwise, all of the other characters have nothing behind them. The first male lead is set up to have the story be based around Sarah’s experiences with him and his tragedy, but he is dropped from the film to introduce three more characters that take on the mentoring role.

One of these mentors is portrayed by classic horror actor Udo Kier (Blade, Shadow of the Vampire, Andy Warhol’s Dracula). It was a horrible decision to cast him in this role because the final mentor is an elderly gentleman. In the end, the final male lead becomes a police detective who probably has less than ten lines in the film. No story should have so many disposable characters.

If one gets past the overly populated story, Mother of Tears may be the best filmed Gothic horror picture of the decade. No one can question Argento’s ability as a director, but the audience has to put up with a lot to witness it. Some might think it is to over the top and offensive, but if those who stick with it may leave happy. Not for the casual horror fan, or the Italian horror fan, Mother of Tears, may just be a picture that missed its mark.