Mother of Tears

Mother of Tears (2007)

A mysterious urn is uncovered outside of an old church cemetery chained to the casket of a knight. When the urn is opened by a couple of art restoration students it sets off a chain of events that threatens to bring about the fall of Rome all over again. One of the students is brutally murdered by a trio of demons while the other, Sarah, manages to escape. But when the urn was opened it awoke the power of a witch, the Mother of Tears, who has a history with Sarah’s family. Soon Sarah is on the run as witches from all over the world flood to Rome as the Mother of Tear’s power grows. Sarah soon realizes as allies and friends are picked off one at a time that she must stop the witch alone.

Unlike many of Argento’s other movies the Mother of Tears has a decent story that avoids the pitfalls that annoy many Argento haters. The plot moves along at a brisk pace and the characters are well developed with understandable motives. Most Argento movies have plots that don’t make much sense at times and rely more on their standout visuals (camera work, lighting) rather than a cohesive narrative to entertain the audience. In that way this movie is a very solid effort until the very end where it loses it’s way. There is a character that shows up out of nowhere near the end of the movie and ends up playing an important part. Also the movie spends a lot of time building up the witch and her followers only to do away with them quickly in a disappointing finale. In spite of this don’t let the last five minutes of the movie ruin it for you. I found the story entertaining and a worthy follow up to Suspiria (which is one of my favorite movies).

The cast has a couple of Argento regulars who show up long enough to get killed off in terrible ways. Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni (Opera) has a couple of demons get medieval on her and Udo Kier is victimized by what I think is a crazed housekeeper. Tell me Argento doesn’t know how to show his friends a good time? But in the end this movie is Asia Argento’s and I think she does a fine job. Her performance is even keeled and believable throughout. In fact the only thing part of her character that I didn’t buy is her relationship with the love interest, which thankfully is done away with quickly. The villains in the movie aren’t given much to work with, especially Moran Atias (the head witch) who is basically asked to walk around naked the entire movie with few lines. Not really a complaint, just an observation.

Effects wise this movie is filled to the brim with blood and guts! The best kill in the movie is the first one where Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni’s character is killed off. It is one of the most brutal killings that I’ve ever seen on screen and is inspired by a couple of different medieval tortures. There are also several really well done throat slashings, a cleaver to the head, someone gets hamstrung, and a nasty bit with a spear (that unfortunately involves some bad CGI to “finish” it off). Oh and I’m not mentioning everything! Argento also manages to push some buttons with a couple of violent scenes involving children that are really well done. But I can’t talk about effects without mentioning the CGI. There is the before mentioned bit with the spear, as well as a church burning and inexplicably the last scene of the movie that look just terrible.

Big fans of Argento’s work might also be disappointed in the look of this movie. There are a couple of neat scenes with the camera work, but overall this isn’t as visually stunning as many of his earlier movies. Maybe this is why many of the hardcore fans of his earlier films dislike this film as much as they do? I can’t say one way or the other. What I can say is that I really liked this movie and recommend it as a purchase. I know this is the sort of movie that I will want to watch over and over again.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer