MY CALL: This very brutal, very gory evil witch demon film brings to an intestine-tangled close Argento’s “Mother Trilogy” in blood-soaked form. IF YOU LIKED THIS WATCH: This film tried to be brutal and largely succeeded. Fans of this wincing style should try Martyrs (2008).
Sarah Mandy (Asia Argento; Land of the Dead, Demons 2) is an American art student in Rome. Unfortunately for Sarah, her supervisor opens an ancient container filled with ancient things and reads some ancient words…and we all know that reading ancient words scribed on ancient things is a death-dealing no-no. I mean, did you see Evil Dead (2013) or The Cabin in the Woods (2012)? So terrible evil immediately converges upon her and, if for no other reason than proximity or contact with the box, that evil subsequently aims itself at Sarah.
“Hey, an ancient cask with ancient writing on it. Let’s open it and read some ancient words off of ancient things. What’s the worst that could happen?”
THIS!!! This is the worst that could happen!
Oh, wait! It actually gets WORSE!!!
Opening this ancient cask has unleashed The Mother of Tears (Mother Lachimarum), the demonic spirit of a long dead witch, upon the city–resulting in a wave of suicides and violent behavior. Also serving as a dark arts homing beacon, gothy witches in outrageous Harry Potter-chic fashion and loud eye make-up from around the world are gathering in Rome to celebrate the return of Mother Lachimarum and bring about the “second fall of Rome”…basically Witchageddon.
Looking for answers, Sarah seeks help to learn about a spectral “voice” that guides her to protection from the invading witches and how she and her deceased mother are linked to the witches. Sarah meets an exorcist, Father Johannes (modern horror forefather Udo Kier; Iron Sky, The Lords of Salem, Blade), who explains much of this mystery.
Director Dario Argento (Suspiria, Tenebre, Phenomena) brings us a dark story with gothic scoring (which is at times perfect, and at others poorly rendered). This is the third and final installment in his “Mother Trilogy,” which he began 30 years prior with Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980). This is not a fraction as eerie as its trilogy predecessors. However, the gore is deliciously over-the-top from the beginning, including images of flesh-tearing torture, smashing heads (repeatedly and to gut-oozing malformation), BDSM, blood-spewing gashes, dismemberment, eye-gauging, disembowelment, gushy cannibalism, wading through a pit of partially liquefied human offal and being strangled by one’s own intestines. There is even a scene in which a woman is speared in her…ummm…reproductive system–it’s all pretty brutal.
“Oh, where are they going to put all these human sacrifice guts and bodies?”
“An offal pit, of course.”
All of these images are meant to shock and provoke cringes and winces. Regarding this suspected goal they are often successful, especially during the finale as we are bombarded by what could only be described as the Devil’s orgy. After all this successfully provocative imagery, Sarah’s defeat of Mother Lachimarum is abruptly lame and anticlimactic. At least it occupied but a minute of a 10-minute gross-out montage full of activity.
The story was alright, but suffered a painful slowdown at about the halfway point. But what fueled this movie was a shock and awe campaign of gore and brutality. With that, Argento was quite successful and I was pleased.
