More brief Mother of Tears Reviews

filmexperience.blogspot.com: "...it's the first Argento since 1988's Opera that I can point to and say, "Yes! This works!" The script is as stupid as ever, but then people don't go to Argento for coherent plots; rather, they go for the man's facility with images and his breathtaking displays of violence. The Mother of Tears is a letdown only in the sense that it isn't really spiritual kin to its predecessors -- the poetic anti-logic that makes Suspiria feel like a fairy tale and Inferno like a nightmare ported straight from its creator's fevered brain is nowhere to be found here..."

The A.V. Club: "The Mother Of Tears (dir. Dario Argento): If you love horror, you have to have a special affection for Dario Argento; in his prime, with movies like Suspiria, Opera, and Deep Red, Argento was better than anyone at creating a heightened, colorful gothic atmosphere (always in glorious CinemaScope, to boot.) As a fan, you learned to live with the fact that Argento never really cared much about his oft-overdubbed Europudding cast or the cheesy, expository dialogue that came out of their months. These days, Argento is all cheese, no style."


aintitcool.com: There is a God. Or a Satan. Right now, I don't care which is responsible.

Dario's third Mother film didn't suck.

You have no idea how much I've been dreading seeing this movie. Dario's recent track record, everything post-Opera really, has been, umm, bad. Really bad. At times unwatchably bad. Even at his best Argento's movies have been more about spectacle than coherence, but stuff like Trauma and his version of Phantom couldn't even provide entertaining spectacles. And for him to try and follow up Suspiria and Inferno (my personal favorite Dario film) now, with his directorial powers fading... the possibilities for a soul-scarring disaster loomed large. Somehow, he pulled it out. Somehow, Mother of Tears did not suck.


jaredsapolin.blogspot.com: "The Mother of Tears (2007, Dario Argento) *1/2 A shame to see such an invigoratingly flamboyant sensibility wasted on such a relentlessly idiotic script. The camera ogling Asia's ripe sexiness and characters being disemboweled, then strangled with their innards, only get you so far. (Though hilarious Gregorian chants of 'Murder!' overwhelming the soundtrack at random do get you a little farther still.)"

Movie Martyr: Surely by the standards of Toronto's Midnight Madness audiences, a new film from horror maestro Dario Argento is an event of the highest order. Few venues anywhere could offer a group of genre fans so excited and so devoted, so the energy at the start of the show was electric. Dario Argento, and his daughter and leading lady Asia were both in attendance, which only contributed to excitement levels. She thanked her father for making her the freak she is. He, clearly in an emotional state, didn't have much to say, but when Midnight Madness programmer Colin Geddes let it slip that it was Dario's birthday, the crowd serenaded him with a rendition of "Happy Birthday"...

...Ultimately, enjoyment of Mother of Tears requires some degree of complicity in the director's game. This film is obviously not as classy as many of Argento's best. It rarely feels eerie, and instead goes for shocks. That shift might come as a letdown to a devoted few, but even they could never accuse Argento of doing things halfway here. He goes deliriously over the top and carries us with him."

the-inbetween.com: "Argento’s The Mother of Tears is a trainwreck. In the first few minutes of the film a woman gets gutted and then strangled by her own intestines. This is a promising start for a horror film! But, unfortunately, it’s all down hill from there (it wasn’t that high a hill to start with). Bad acting, bad script, no real “horror” and an ending so ridiculous that it could easily be mistaken for one long joke. It’s not. On top of everything it also comes across as overly misogynistic. Thumb down!"

cinecon.blogspot.com: "The coldly baroque, elegant style -- the garishly stylized color, the wind, the music -- that made Argento's SUSPIRIA one of the greatest horror movies ever is scarcely present here. Instead there's a lot of creative ways to draw blood --"