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.
