La Terza Madre

One of the most, if not the most influential of all horror directors, Dario Argento is back to offer the concluding episode to a trilogy he started off back in 1977 by the film many regard as his most significant masterpiece, Suspiria. The director is known and recognized for his tremendous ability and willingness to summon and present imagefabrics and atmospheres that breathe in profound creative power and exhale but sheer originality via the special language of sinister fairy tales, traits which Suspiria possesses clearly, and also a trademark approach of Argento, though naturally not utilized in his works dealing with different subject matters.

Oh, yes - different subject matters. Once Argento leaves the region of fairy tales that speaks (or rather whispers, the Italian word "Suspiria" translates to "Sighs"/" Whispers") in the language of secrets with profound renditions of evil, then he seems keen to follow the basic buildup of old fashioned, dare we say: obsolete detective fiction. This is a clear, but not necessarily well utilized legacy of the giallo genre, a unique, Italian movie style which delivers a special sensation of romantic horror and strong thriller elements. The genre was very popular in the '70s's Italy, and, beside fellow filmmaker Mario Bava, Dario Argento was an influential giallo creator himself, usually being credited as the director who made the biggest effort to popularize the style outside of Italy.

Unfortunately, as of Argento's recent personal approach to horror he seems to rely on the elements that I find to be the less interesting of the giallo genre, giallo itself having strong relations to old school detective fiction. Even the Italian word "giallo" translates to "yellow", hinting at the conditions these soft covered fiction papers tend to end up in. I am sorry to reckon that once Argento leaves the waters of tales, he currently seems to have a tendency to commit detective fiction cliché abuse, offering shallow characters in all the usual suspense situations that everyone had chance before to grow quite fed up with. Key elements: mysterious relics to telepathically inform you of: "Hola! Me = Baaad News!", strange people to follow the protagonist, disappearance of previous associates, and of course the all-time classic: digging up ancient books in public libraries to enigmatically reckon that Evil is about to unleashed rampant, as the very signs that consensual reality sends off conforms with the sinister prophecies of the Forbidden Knowledge the book is quite happy to share with every visitor to come by.

La Terza Madre is the most unfortunate blend of the two approach that Dario Argento is famous for, resulting in an improbably silly mixture to outline the unique standards of a Fairy Tale Detective Fiction Supernatural Horror! One can't possibly be serious about thinking this is going to work. Anyway, according to the tagline of the film:

What you see does not exist. What you cannot see is truth.

Then my relief is intact and complete, as I could surely regard La Terza Madre as something I have never seen, and still remain eager to see when Dario Argento decides to deliver his true, uncompromised vision he soaked Suspiria into. As what I have NOT seen: was but a laugh, and was a bitter of it, I am sorry to say.

There was a couple of occasions before when Dario Argento directed his own daughter, Asia Argento, the very first time to do so was the film called Trauma, a thriller shot by a period when Asia Argento was but sixteen years old. Now she is a recognized actress in Italy, yet unfortunately she has not much to do here than running around in front of the camera, looking distressed. For this, Argento offers quite a few, though very pale reasons.

Synopsis: an ancient, apparently very evil box is found and senselessly opened by cheeky archaeologist girls, (huh? you felt something funny there right away?) whom of course can't wait to conduct all the indispensable scientific observations and inspections prior to open such an artifact up. Terror quickly emerges, even to the moment where you truly can't help but anticipate the classic, multidimensional sinister laugh to compromise the very fabric of the reality grid. You know, the MUHAHA! stuff.

Argento chooses to unleash classic, old fashioned visual propterror to blow half of the juiceblood he had for the whole movie, nevertheless, this act proves to be enough to reestablish an attention span that had most definite chances to lean down via the extremely mediocre acting the film delivers right the first frame with actors on it from. Suffice it to say that the box contained a piece of cloth belonging to The Mother of Tears, Third of the Witches the entire trilogy accounts on. Chaos and mayhem emerges, people are going crazy all over the place, even beer is about to vanish, now THIS is bad news indeed.

Mandy, Asia Argento's character is forced to conduct your usual b-flick investigation with the gruesome servants of The Mother of Tears on her tail. The servants of course are females of the average attractive proportions, whom, despite their timeless, ancient origins had the pleasant chance to dress up to recent gothic standards, and therefore they terrorize pedestrians with extremely rude behavior. Wow. You can't help but notice originality once a hand pushes it down on your throat with an elbow remaining to be seen, at best.



Uhuh. Talk to you LATER dad, I am in
some SEEERIOUS acting here!

Mandy ends up at various notable solars and experts on the very operations and workings of the Supernatural, each having a focal tip to offer for the damsel in distress, even revealing her True Nature. A brief, somewhat unconvincing role of great actor Udo Kier is of note here, unfortunately he gets killed quite swiftly after appearing, so I don't think that giving this away will spoil your enjoyment. Sadly, Kier has not much to do here except to produce semi-convincing episodes of a psychic breakdown, though I think this is so far away from this naturally calm and enigmatic individual that seeing him faking it shatters the illusion away in a blink of an eye, and in my opinion also points to a fault Argento committed on the directional part.

Anyway, Mandy later visits another solar, a mature female and a beautiful this one is, and, just to satisfy any urges that might risen in certain viewers, Argento does not fail to offer totally redundant softcore sex scenes where this mature female has her fun with her younger sex slave. Thank you Dario, truly can't imagine how I could get away without THAT one.

Though Mandy does not get the chance to join in as third for the playtime the mature female is keen of having, she gives focal directions to the protagonist. Turns out that Mandy inherited the psychic talents of her mother, who was able to put an end to the sinister workings of Suspiria's witch, thereby a logical connection is established with the previous installments of the trilogy. From this point on, Mandy is capable to see the spirit world, - (also known as utterly cheap CG effects) so she conducts brief, weightless conversations with her mother's spirit. The ancestor tells her daughter that danger is great, and she needs to be prepared for combat. When Mandy suddenly realizes all that, then her mother warns her that danger is great, and she needs to be prepared for combat. Finally though, the wisdom of the mother proves to be quite priceless, informing her daughter that danger is great, and she needs to be prepared for combat. Nice, yes?



- SUBMIT!
- Bah. Get a life. Or a haircut. Or both.

The only period I found La Terza Madre good in was by the time that the male sidekick was going crazy and turned on Mandy and the mature female's hideout was discovered by the servants. At this point, Argento turns the volume all the way to the right, alas, only for a quite brief period of time, then we arrive to detective fiction mediocrity again. One is left with the impression that Argento thought that one had quite enough of a good thing already. No, in fact, I did not. It remains a honest question on my side if Argento truly was unaware of what a positive boost and direction his film takes for a brief period, only to sink back to clumsy, textbook storytelling in the next minute.

It is hard to tell of any conclusion as there is not any of it, since there wasn't a real conflict given at the first place. The Mother of Tears is but yet another average beauty with of course no knowledge whatsoever of clothing hardware, saved for her magical tunic she gains her powers (?) from. If you decide to check this film out, an act I would urge you to regardless of my ranting, then you will notice that my question is quite legit. Behold though the hideous servants she is surrounded by, the servants whom are truly, radically and originally evil since they devour human flesh and keenly engage in sexual pastimes to feature elements you didn't likely tried out yet yourself. What can I say, my reality is shattered, all I ever though to be true is but a fake rendition of a series of lies I could never reach up to to understand. That how deep my cluelessness resides, or that how deep Argento chose to temporarily sink down to shock us on visual registers. Once you reach these depths though, you are either to go even MORE below, or not show anything at ALL, in my opinion.

In this here film, La Terza Madre, violence ultimately weights in as not being particularly creative, and reflects the personal, evident fixations of Argento towards the enigma of female body. Also, if you have seen an Argento movie where he misses to show bare female feet, please be sure to comment on these pages. The story and the mere drama buildup both seem similarly weightless to me, and the evident lack of a message (huh?) to be sent remains the most frightening aspect of all this unsuccessful effort to offer a state of the art horror tale. This is a very cheap one at that, and can't help but thinking that Dario Argento himself would agree with me on this.



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