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A thematic sequel to the legendary Italian horror Suspiria (1977), Inferno is the second part of Dario Argento’s Three Mothers trilogy. The long-delayed concluding entry, The Mother of Tears, was released in 2007, and one of us caught it at the Toronto International Film Festival.
All three films are partially derived from the concept of “Our Ladies of Sorrow” (Mater Lachrymarum, Mater Suspiriorum and Mater Tenebrarum) originally devised by author Thomas de Quincey in his 19th century work, Suspiria de Profundis.
Inferno received a very limited theatrical release and was unable to match the box office success of its predecessor. The initial critical response to the film was mostly negative…and it’s gotten some more positive attention more recently (if not from us).
The music, for starters, doesn’t match the thunderous beats Goblin graced other Argento films with. Here it’s the cheesy music of one of the dudes from Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
The filming of Inferno took place mainly on interior studio sets in Rome, Italy but a short amount of time was also set aside for location shooting in The Big Apple, including Central Park (the setting for one of the film’s few memorable moments).
Its reputation precedes it. But does Plan 9 from Outer Space (original title Grave Robbers from Outer Space) deserve all the derogation? Some say it is the worst film ever made. This is patently false. We’d go to our graves (speaking of robbing them), saying Dana Carvey’s The Master of Disguise is worse.
A superficially straight-ahead ghost story, there’s much more to The Changeling than meets the eye. There’s also a political procedural aspect to this, which is probably a bit less than successful, but that which keeps things interesting.