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Mother of Tears

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Mother of Tears (2008)

49%
100%
47%
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49 %
Reviews Counted: 61 Fresh: 30  Rotten:31 Average Rating: 5.3/10
 
Consensus: As excessive and ketchup laden as predecessors Suspiria and Inferno, Dario Argento's Mother of Tears completes the trilogy with the same baroque grandeur and soggy 1970s sensibilities.
 

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The Tomatometer measures the percentage of positive reviews from Approved Tomatometer Critics for a certain movie.[-]

Runtime: 1 hr 38 mins

Synopsis: The third installment in Italian horror master Dario Argento's Three Mothers saga, THE MOTHER OF TEARS is a gruesome and long-awaited treat for horror fans. Completing a loosely knit trilogy that began with SUSPIRIA (1977) and continued with INFERNO (1980), the film sees the titular witch... The third installment in Italian horror master Dario Argento's Three Mothers saga, THE MOTHER OF TEARS is a gruesome and long-awaited treat for horror fans. Completing a loosely knit trilogy that began with SUSPIRIA (1977) and continued with INFERNO (1980), the film sees the titular witch awakening to unleash apocalyptic evil on Rome. A grisly and excessive hoot, this is one of the director's strongest efforts since the 1980s. After construction workers discover an ancient urn near a cemetery, it is sent to a Rome university where Sarah Mandy (Asia Argento, daughter of the director) is an art history student. Shortly after opening the urn, Sarah's associate is brutally murdered (in an frighteningly creative manner) by a mysterious being who also unleashes an evil monkey in the halls of the school. Sarah escapes to tell the police, but they find her story implausible. Soon, though, it becomes apparent that a tidal wave of evil is washing over the city as a serious of excessively violent crimes is committed. Matters are worsened when the international black magic community--aware that the urn has unleashed Mater Lachyrmarum, The Mother of Tears--begins to descend upon a chaotic Rome in droves. Within its first 10 minutes, MOTHER OF TEARS features a woman being strangled by her own intestines, and continues with well-paced shocks from that point on. As in TRAUMA (1993) and THE STENDHAL SYNDROME (1996), Argento has no reservations about putting his always-game daughter though virtual hell on screen. While featuring none of the candy-colored lighting that made SUSPIRIA and INFERNO such surreal nightmares, this is still a rock-solid horror film with more originality and loony energy than a dozen SAWs or FINAL DESTINATIONs, proving that the nearly 70-year-old Argento still has the knack that won him legions of fans. [More]

Genre: Horror/Suspense

Starring: Asia Argento, Cristian Solimeno, Adam James, Udo Kier

Director: Dario Argento
Screenwriter: Dario Argento, Jace Anderson, Adam Gierasch
Story: Dario Argento

DVD Info

Release:

Nov 9, 2009

[DVD Details]

Reviews

 
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Full Review | comment Comment
09/22/07
Screen International
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6/10

We come to an Argento picture for the surreal, Baroque imagery, and though much here fits those descriptions, there's a great deal of it that's also quite gaudy and goofy and, dare I say, campy.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/29/08
Tim Brayton
Antagony & Ecstasy
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1/4

Should be locked away for the sake of mankind.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/24/08
Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star
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0/5

Click to read the article

Full Review | comment Comment
07/15/08
Film Threat
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N/A

A very entertaining fiasco

Full Review | comment Comment
07/07/08
Richard Knight
Windy City Times
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N/A

... the concluding chapter of Argento's "Three Mothers" trilogy dispenses with the overt stylization of its predecessors ... in favor of a sobering dose of realism.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/04/08
Steve Biodrowski
ESplatter
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N/A

Mother of Tears is contrived, confused, clumsy, and quite simply dreadful.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/03/08
Sean Axmaker
Seanax.com
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N/A

Mother of Tears feels like a copy, like someone "doing Argento", instead of the real deal that it could have been.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/03/08
Brian Tallerico
The Deadbolt
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5/5

Just as twisted, surprising and gruesome as anything that Argento has given us in the past and a more than worthy successor to its two predecessors.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/01/08
Peter Sobczynski
eFilmCritic.com
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N/A

So although Argento may not be in peak form, he does seem to be enjoying himself and there are still flashes of the old master.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/27/08
Beth Accomando
KPBS.org
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2/4

A gruesome drama enacted by a cast that speaks English with a bewildering variety of accents, Mother of Tears is reliably gruesome and occasionally startling but not particularly scary.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/26/08
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul)
St. Paul Pioneer Press
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2/4

Asia Argento's outright horrendous performance ruins what could have been a decent B-movie.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/23/08
Austin Kennedy
Sin Magazine
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N/A

... goofy fun, in its own way. But it's the same goofy fun we've seen in dozens of other films for years now, by Argento and others.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/20/08
Andy Klein
Los Angeles CityBeat
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N/A

In comparison to the majority of bland Hollywood widgets cranked out on a corporate conveyer belt, these mad, personal misfires are the real masterworks.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/19/08
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Cinematical
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2.5/4

The visuals are vibrant and fans of Argento's bravura bloodletting will thrill to his imaginative use of pikes, entrails and his daughter, who performs a shower scene for Dear Old Dad.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/19/08
Colin Covert
Minneapolis Star Tribune
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D

The visual mastery that not only excused but actually elevated the illogic of the first two installments of the trilogy is absent here.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/19/08
Frank Swietek
One Guy's Opinion
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3/4

No, this film doesn't make a ton of sense but it is highly entertaining. An insane, delirious bloodbath.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/16/08
Lucius Gore
ESplatter
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N/A

A feeble, incidental continuation of his earlier films.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/10/08
Rumsey Taylor
Not Coming to a Theater Near You
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C+

This is a foreign horror movie that's all about style and shock value. The fruit of Argento's mad vision is an acquired taste, but there's plenty to chew on here.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/09/08
Cole Smithey
ColeSmithey.com
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B-

In The Mother of Tears, the last installment of the 'witch trilogy' that began, three decades ago, with Suspiria, an excavated urn unleashes a torrent of homicidal madness in Rome.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/06/08
Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly
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