Dream "Inferno"
Media / 6/30/2008 6:36:09 PM
As promised, Michael Penkas' marvy take on number two of Dario Argento's trilogy. Another bizarre visual nightmare to feast your eyes upon and wonder what kind of brain creates such craziness! And one step closer to the piece de resistance..."Mother of Tears" (coming to the Music Box Theatre in Chicago on July 2'nd and various other sites in North America this summer.)
Inferno (1980) is a sort-of sequel to
Dario Argento's classic horror film,
Suspiria (1977). Ask almost anyone (this reviewer
included), and you'll be told that it's just not as good. On the other
hand, you're probably not going to find movies that look like these being
produced by anyone else. Even Argento doesn't seem to be making films like
Suspiria and Inferno any longer, having slowly drifted towards a more realistic
style that (while he does it well) no longer looks like his
signature. Just like Suspiria, Inferno is the kind of movie that you might see
in a dream.
Unfortunately, this time the dream logic is taken to an extreme.
Where Suspiria had a threadbare plot surrounded by beautifully shot scenes of violence and
exposition, Inferno doesn't seem to have any plot at all. It is rather a series
of interconnected
vignettes involving a New York hotel and a trio of witches. The three witches
are known as the
Mother of Sighs (who terrorized the dance school in Suspiria), the Mother of
Tears (who haunts
Rome in the 2007 film of the same name) and the Mother of Shadows (who's at the
center of this
film's conspiracy). Their secrets are outlined in a book entitled "The Three
Mothers" and anyone
who gets too close to learning these secrets dies horribly. That's pretty much
the plot. We
don't spend enough time with any of the potential protagonists to feel any
sympathy for them.
Oh, but the things they see before they die ...
Once again, Dario Argento has us so dazzled by bizarre scenery and surreal
behaviors that we barely notice until it's all over that none of it makes any
sense. The opening underwater scene sets the tone for the rest of the movie
(just as the opening murder in Suspiria managed to do).
Occasionally, the surrealism grows so absurd that it threatens to pull the
viewer out of the story
entirely (like the attack by flying cats or the face of death that looks
suspiciously like a rubber mask); but it all works if you get yourself into the
right state of mind.
The biggest let-down on the sequel would definitely be the change in soundtrack.
The Goblins do
not provide music for Inferno and they are sorely missed as the sound moves
between service-ably creepy and so over-the-top it's funny instead of scary.
That's Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake & Palmer doing the music, by the way.
Inferno was not as successful as Suspiria and is not as readily available on
DVD; but if you
enjoyed the themes of power and gender (as well as the striking visuals) of the
first film, this
one is worth a look.
Michael Penkas
Jill's p.s. Next week it's the final cherry of the trilogy, the recently released, Mother of Tears. Send us your two cents at: comments@killer-works.com
p.p.s. New Flash Fiction is coming!!! Be afraid, very afraid (it's a gory one!) And you only have two more days left to read Tina Jen's, "What's With All The Damned Zombies, Anyway?" Don't miss out.
