Mother of Tears (ITALIAN)

(La Terza Madre)
Film Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Grisly Trilogy Closes with Another Gruesome Snuff Flick

Although Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980) were also directed by her famous father, Dario, Asia Arguento was only born in 1975 and was thus too young to appear in either of those first two installments of his grisly trilogy of splatter flicks. But now the accomplished actress has taken over the lead role of Sarah Mandy for The Mother of Tears, the high attrition-rate affair completing the series.
Filled with plenty of gratuitous bloodletting from beginning to end, the low-budget movie looks like a slapdash film school project by a D-student with a weird agenda. From highly eroticized violence to disturbing decapitations to the ritualistic gutting of females leading to the spilling of intestines, the picture offers an experience strictly for fans with an almost insatiable lust for such disgusting displays.
Despite the fact that this is supposedly a sequel, the production is practically plot-free. The point of departure is a cemetery in Italy where an ancient urn is unearthed attached to a coffin belonging to Oscar De La Valla inscribed with the date 1815. It turns out that inside the urn is a tunic and other artifacts belonging to Mater Lacrimarum (Moran Atias), the last surviving of three evil witches who have spread death and destruction around Rome for eons.
Mater had been resting dormant, but the disturbing of the grave, of course, triggers a new wave of horrifying events. As the daughter of a white witch killed by Mater Suspiriorum, it falls to Sarah to save the day and thereby avenge her mother’s (Daria Nicolodi) death.
Fortunately, Sarah happens to be an art restoration student and also romantically-linked to Michael (Adam James), the curator of the Museum of Ancient Art of Rome. So, in the midst of slaughter, chaos and utter depravity (such as mass suicides, sacrificial lesbian orgies and babies being dropped to their deaths off bridges), the couple is called upon to solve the mystery by deciphering a set of esoteric clues.
A kinky alternative to The Da Vinci Code for conspiracy theorists with cast iron stomachs.

Poor (0 stars)
Unrated
In English and Italian with subtitles.
Running time: 98 minutes
Studio: Myriad Pictures