October 9, 2018
Written by: Dario Argento
Starring: Leigh McClosky, Irene Miracle, Eleonora Giorgi
Budget: $3,000,000
Quote: "There are mysterious parts in that book, but the only true mystery is that our very lives are governed by dead people."
Trivia: Final film of Italian film director Mario Bava [i.e. in any crew capacity, Bava was not a credited director on this movie, he came in to help with the visual effects after the request of Dario Argento, who was a big admirer of Bava. His son, Lombardo Bava was the assistant director].
Inferno is the second film in Dario Argento's Three Mother trilogy. The first is 1977's Suspiria and the last is the much awaited followup, 2007's Mother of Tears. While these films are not sequels in the traditional sense, they do have similar themes, follow similar story structures, and are all based on a mid-nineteenth century book. Most viewers will see that Inferno lacks the originality of Suspiria, which was singularly original upon its release. Simply enough, there existed nothing like it. Inferno, however, does not innovate but instead continues what Suspiria began. And although there was a lot of criticism heaped upon the movie at its release, it is a movie with a lot of surprisingly incredible moments that has aged well with time. Argento continues with his beautiful camera work full of reds and blues. He even contracted Mario Bava, his mentor and the godfather of Italian horror, to help with special effects and camerawork. This would be Bava's last project as he died shortly after its release. Also, Bava's son Lamberto Bava (who would go to make Demons and Demons 2 with Argento) worked on the film. Also, in order to set the movie apart from Suspiria, Argento replaced the rock band Goblin with progressive rocker Keith Emerson (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) who combines rock with classic Italian Opera to compose a really interesting and excited score.
The movie begins by setting out the trilogy's concept that there are three evil sisters who live in houses created for them by an alchemist. The first one is The Mother of Sighs who lives in Germany and was the subject of Suspiria, the second is The Mother of Darkness who lives in New York (the subject of this film), and the final one is The Mother of Tears who lives in Rome. One character, Rose suspects that she lives in The Mother of Darkness building because she read about it in a book called The Three Mothers and writes to her brother Mark in Rome about it. Almost immediately the people around Mark begin being killed by a mysterious killer. Even Rose is killed. Mark makes his way to New York, only to discover Rose's house is full of weirdos, who are probably witches. There's the antique guy who is killed while trying to drown cats in Central Park. There's the elderly man in the wheelchair who tries to attack Mark but is choked to death on his own voice apparatus. There is also the woman who, while being attacked by dozens of cats, is stabbed by a mysterious gloved person. In the end Mark comes face to face with the woman is The Mother of Darkness and barely escapes the house with his life.
This film, like many of Argento's, have a hallucinatory feel to them. The plot seems to sway this way and that, making the narrative unclear and often disconnected. This can make the movie difficult to follow, but it also does help to create the dreamy atmosphere that Argento is famous for. There are moments in the film that seemingly do not connect to the central story but are so beautiful or vile that its use as a plot element is unimportant. Additionally, the film falls into the category of magic realism, a more or less realistic view of the world that reveals some magical elements. While the killings are done by the hands of men, beneath the surface is an evil that is pulling the strings. Having began in the Giallo genre, Argento become its most celebrated director. This movie, and Suspiria, use the Giallo elements (slasher violence, a mysterious killer, voyeurism, and madness) in this film but with the addition of those magical elements.
There is one scene in particular that makes the entire movie worth watching, the swimming scene. Early into the film, Rose follows the clues in The Three Mothers to the cellar of the house where she finds an underwater ballroom beneath the floorboards. Accidentally dropping her key into the water, Rose swims down to reach it. There is so much beauty in seeing the gorgeous Rose swimming through the lavish ballroom. I cannot think of a better example of a dreamlike sequence. The actress had been a swimmer and is brings her character a lot of grace. Not to miss an opportunity to juxtapose the beautiful with the macabre, during this scene, Rose accidentally bumps into a rotting corpse. This releasing the corpse and she has to fight it off as they both make their way to the surface.
The house itself is also something from a dream. Argento stated that he based the movie on Hansel and Gretel but instead of a Gingerbread or Pan Cake House he created a labyrinthine mansion for the characters to get lost in. Both magic and realism collide as the house is a place for evil to watch and listen to its occupants. However, instead of magic, it is the house's steampunk engineering that does the trick. Piping throughout the various rooms gives the house ears and locking mechanisms allow the house to respond to its guests.
Finally, as for the gore department, the movie has more violent scenes than Suspiria but none that hit as hard as Suspiria's opening scene or the barbed wire scene. One thing I really liked is the movie, like Psycho, has a false protagonist. The main character the movie followed, Rose, is killed 39 minutes into the film, stabbed in the back, leaving us, the viewer, confused and anxious. This is a statement to the viewer that the traditional storytelling rules have gone out the window. Then there's the other gore scenes: A girl has the back of her head slammed onto a nail in a windowsill and then has window slammed down upon more or less guillotining her. Another character has his eyes gouged out and another person has the back of his neck chopped open (its weird to see the back of the neck chopped).
Overall, this is a really strong film. It is just that Suspiria is so damn good, that it would be almost impossible for any movie to live up to it. Had Inferno come first and Suspira second, I think it would have been much better received and been on everyone's top fifty horror movie lists.
...what's your thoughts?
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