Inferno

It can hardly be denied that Italian horror film director Dario Argento is a true master craftsman. His films are often visually arresting, with many strange and horrific sounds, imagery, and bizarre set decorations that really succeed in creating atmospheres of pure dread, evil, and terror. His "giallo" (the Italian word for "yellow") murder-mystery films are what are most-known around the world to horror fans, because they combine the typical whodunit with elements of horror and the supernatural; the best film of this genre that I've seen so far is Argento's "Suspiria" (1977), though I have yet to see the other highly regarded picture from this time, "Deep Red" (1975).

Argento's 1980 feature "Inferno" is a semi-sequel to his earlier "Suspiria"; "Inferno" is the second in a loose film trilogy known as the "Three Mothers," which began with "Suspiria," followed by "Inferno," and was concluded in 2007 with the long-delayed "The Mother of Tears." This loose trilogy surrounds the legend of three ancient witches living in the present-day - one in Germany ("Suspiria"), another in New York City (this film), and the third finally in Rome ("The Mother of Tears"). "Inferno," while visually arresting with astounding production values and horrific blood-lettings, is a mixed bag with little coherence in the plot.

I did not find Argento's earlier "Suspiria" to be a particularly well-acted or well-written film. Argento is largely a director of style over substance, but his style is usually the star of the show in most of his films, hence why actors and plot often seem secondary. What made that film so horrifying was its sounds, imagery, and soundtrack (by the Italian band Goblin). It was such a uniquely unsettling horror film experience that it terrified me to the bone when I watched it for the first time.

"Inferno" is alternatively set in Rome and New York City. Rose Elliot (Irene Miracle) discovers the book "The Three Mothers" in New York City and comes to suspect that she is living in one of the buildings believed to house one of the Three Mothers. She writes to her brother Mark (Leigh McCloskey) in Rome for him to come visit her. This sets in motion a series of events that plunges them into a horrifying world of murder and the supernatural as they try to uncover the truth about the Three Mothers.

A lot of events in "Inferno" seem random and off-putting and seem to interfere with the narrative with little in the plot connecting any of the events. For example, the beautiful Italian girl (Ania Pieroni) who shows up at different points while Mark is in Rome; she never speaks, he never speaks to her, and we know nothing about her. But she provides an interesting visual element in an otherwise dark and disturbing picture.

"Inferno" is incredibly well-made, but like I said even incoherence in the plot has its limits. "Suspiria" didn't have much of a coherent story, but Argento's style and use of secondary background elements (sound, imagery, music) were able to make you "experience" the picture in ways that were more than enough to make up for the picture's shortcomings. "Inferno" does have some neat camera and visual trickery that plunge you into the madness so that you feel like you're actually there experiencing everything the characters are witnessing.

There are also some creatively gruesome murders here and there (a disturbing factoid here is that Argento himself often likes to portray the hands of the killer in his films). There's even a disturbing sequence involving a crippled old man, cats and rats that is pretty extraordinary and has to be seen to be truly believed, even if it does seem a bit random. And there's another sequence involving Rose in an underwater moat that is just downright chilling.

"Inferno" is not as "hot" as I thought it was going to be. In fact, I thought it was a little cold for my liking, considering my experience with "Suspiria." Maybe it'll get better (and "hotter") on repeat viewings.

6/10

Dario Argento did some good movies back in the day. Sadly, I cannot consider this one a masterpiece. What little there is of plot feels very "mehh" and you start to feel very soon that this movie is just an excuse for Dario Argento to slap you with some red and blue while pretending that's art. Being spiritual successor to "Suspiria" you would expect a decent amount of creepy scenes, but you only get half of it, and when it starts to near to perfection, Dario blows it and it falls flat. Characters are bland and you don't really care for anybody except the final guy, which you only do because he looks cool. Also, the ending is pretty disappointing and you are like: "What just happened?". Still, it's not all that bad. That song near the end of the movie is kinda cool, there are some little disturbing moments and the movie oozes with potential. Sadly, the potential is left wasted and you just get a half baked horror movie who doesn't know what to do with itself. 6.5/10 from me! It's far from the worst thing you can watch as a horror fan, but it's a perfect fit for that "mehh" category...

In New York, the poetess Rose Elliot (Irene Miracle) reads an ancient book called "The Three Mothers" that she bought in the bookseller and antique Kazanian close to her building. The architect and alchemist E. Varelli, who tells that had designed and built three buildings for three mothers,in Rome, New York and Freiburg, wrote an impressive story in London. These threes wicked mothers, called Mater Suspiriorum (the oldest one), Mater Lachrymarum (the most beautiful) and Mater Tenebrarum (the youngest and cruelest), intended to rule the world with sorrow, tears and darkness. In accordance with the book, there are three keys, each one of them hidden in one building. Rose realizes that she lives in one of the buildings, and decides to look for the second hidden key in the cellar. From this moment on, weird things happen to her and she decides to write a letter to her brother Mark Elliot (Leigh McCloskey), a student of musicology in Rome, and asks him to visit her in New York. Mark never meets his sister and finds who the three mothers are indeed.

This is the beginning of "Inferno", one of my favorite Dario Argento's movies, with an intriguing and frightening story and great atmosphere. There are many flaws in the screenplay; the characters are not well developed, so their motives are not clear; and there are lacks of explanations for many events, so the viewer does not understand why the evil mothers attack the characters of the story, but anyway it is a cult Gothic movie. With some improvements in the screenplay, this movie would be a masterpiece classic. I have already seen this scary movie four times in a VHS I have recorded a couple of years ago from cable TV, and unfortunately it has not been released on VHS or DVD in Brazil. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Mansão do Inferno" ("The Mansion of the Hell")

Note: On June 23rd, 2009, I saw this movie for the fifth time in an imported DVD.

On June, 4th 2015, I saw this movie again.

Dario Argento is a master of his genre, no doubt about that, but his script here is pure hokum. The film has a number of striking images (the mysterious beauty that appears out of nowhere in the classroom; the drapes being slowly ripped apart by the nails of a stabbed-to-death woman; the close-up of Daria Nicolodi's lips; the pursuer at the library's basement, whose face remains in the dark, but whose hands are clearly not human), and a very peculiar architectural design, with secret passages leading to all sorts of hidden rooms to other passages to other rooms....However, as many others have said, the film is best approached as a dream, because the plot is incoherent and there are several scenes that run on too long. It does get better on the second viewing. (**)

Definitely a Dario Argento film here. No question about it. The film's plot concerns a young girl ,having read a book about three "mothers" who live in France, Germany, and her hotel in New York, investigating the place she lives in for a key. The girl contacts her brother going to school in Rome - anyone buy Leigh McCloskey as a student of musicology? - asking for help. The three mothers are...well, if you know you are a step ahead of me.

This Argento film is very problematic. On the one hand its genius cannot be denied when it comes to visual artistry and suspense building. Argento paints a scene like no other film maker I know, with the exception perhaps of Mario Bava(who worked on this film...his last). The vibrant colors used throughout the film are surreal, and some of the scenes are lessons in scene building. The underwater sequence is an awesome scene, yet its has virtually no place in the film's plot. Another scene involves a crippled man falling in water and slowly being devoured by rats. His cries reach a diner cook working late, who runs outside to stick a knife in the poor man's throat. His character or an explanation never come. How about the key? Never mentioned again. Visual brilliance cannot make this a good film, though it really works hard at it. I found myself not really understanding what was going on yet loving the scenery. As with most of Argento's work, we get plenty of bloody deaths, particularly young girls and crippled older men. Inferno is not a bad film nor is it a great film. It has many qualities found in Suspiria, but that film made a great deal more sense and had some actors that had a bit more talent than those involved with this. McCloskey's stage presence is akin to driftwood. He is a very poor lead. Alida Valli is back as a permed hotel manager. She gives a good performance though her part has almost no real significance in the film. I guess my gripe is that how can a director with so much obvious talent like Argento just cross the line too much between reality and imagination. If your audience doesn't have SOME guidance then how are they going to know what you are trying to achieve. Some reviewers say you need to watch this film many times to get its point. Balderdash! I could watch it ten more times and still would not be able to make the aforementioned connections in the plot. I could easily sit through the film again though, because of Argento's style of using film as a canvas. If Inferno had a better constructed plot, something along the lines of Suspiria, this very well could be a minor masterpiece. It is definitely worth a look; however, though it pales in comparison to Suspiria in every way.