Tonight I watched another horror movie from Dario Argento : "Inferno" (1980), which was his sequel to "Suspiria". As it turns out, the two films are part of a trilogy called "The Three Mothers", with the third film being "Tenebrae" (1982). I'm not certain I saw "Tenebrae" when it was released, and we may have to wait to find out because the library doesn't have a copy. Maybe I'll buy it, but anyhow, I did see "Inferno" in the theater in 1980, but I don't recall being aware at the time that it was the sequel to "Suspiria". As I noted in my review of that film, much was made of it's unique artistic style, it's use of colored lighting and the "staged" look of the entire production. Because the storyline of "Suspiria" was rather thin, I remembered nothing of it 42 years later before I watched it for a second time last week. I only remembered that Argento had given it an indelible "look", which I wrote about at length in my review.
The same was true for "Inferno", which I remembered even less. What I did recall was that it had a score written by Keith Emerson, which would have been at least as much of a drawing card for my friends and I as Argento's name and our collective appreciation for "Suspiria", which could have been summed up in a sentence such as, "Wow it was really good but not what we were used to or expecting". I think now, looking back, that Argento's take on horror was so artsy, and so European, with it's heavy Latin references and the look and dress of the actors, that - while it was impressive - it just didn't stick, because "Suspiria" came out at the same time as "The Hills Have Eyes", with it's grim locale in the dried-up Mojave desert, where the monsters were mutants who had no accents and didn't wear makeup, not to mention the absence of all the colored lights. We were used to what I will call "the awfulness of horror", the kind that could happen in real life if you were stuck out in the desert with a flat tire, or if you were stupid enough to wander into a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere in Texas.
Argento's horror, on the other hand, looked like a garish dream, a nightmare of liquid colors, all of them carefully arranged in every shot for just the right contrast in the director's design. I think it didn't stick in my brain because, for me, horror was supposed to be gritty, i.e. featuring real life psychos in run down locations. "Don't Go In The House" was good advice indeed, a title that fit the horrific movie to which it was attached, so that you knew exactly what you were walking into. With Argento, every detail in his films was saturated with color, every scene stylized and thought out, staged, like a play. I think they seemed exotic, so even though I went with my friends because of the rave reviews, I left thinking "wow really cool" but not remembering the films for very long because of that exotic aftertaste. That was what I remembered, that Argento style. But I remembered nothing whatsoever about the movies themselves.
Having seen both "Suspiria" and now "Inferno" in the last two weeks, I think a reassessment is in order. I've already reviewed the former, praising it's artfulness while lamenting it's thin story, but now that I've seen "Inferno", which has a more developed plotline, I think I can better understand what Argento was going for. He was perhaps trying to develop his trilogy of "The Three Mothers" slowly, building his plot over the course of the trio of films instead of simply having the story resolve in each and every one. To be sure, both films that I have seen can be watched as separate entities, but now that I've watched them in close proximity to each other, I can see how they work as a pair, and I'm sure that "Tenebrae" completes the story (whether I've seen it or not I can't recall).
'The Three Mothers" are three witches of Latin legend. In "Inferno", Rose (played by an actress named Irene Miracle), is an American woman living in an old building in New York. She is interested in the occult, and buys old books on the topic from a man who owns an adjacent antique store. As the movie begins, she has just opened a book called "The Three Mothers", which she has purchased on a tip having to do with the building's history.
Rose has a brother (Leigh McCloskey) who is a music student studying in Rome. She sends him a letter detailing her suspicions about the building, and what she has learned from her book. He doesn't get a chance to read the letter immediately, but his Italian girlfriend does. She is so shocked by what she has read that she travels to New York herself, ahead of McCloskey, and into dire circumstances.
The building is lit up in dark blues and reds. Vicious stray cats surround the place, rats flood the sewer pipes in a nearby alley. Rose has disappeared down into a cellar through a grate that opens from the pavement. Now her brother's girlfriend is making the mistake of going to search for her in the same location, where you and I would never venture, especially if it was all lit up in blue and green with a guy with extra long fingers hunkered down inside.
That is all I can tell you because the hour is late, and i want to finally finish a blog all at once instead of piecing it out over two days. But you can imagine that after the follies of his sister and his girlfriend, that Leigh McCloskey is gonna take a plane to New York to investigate the building himself, and that when he does, he is going to uncover quite a lot more color schemes than he bargained for, not to mention some very evil witches and their solemn, vampyric hechmen.
"Inferno" is slow paced, and 15 minutes too long, but it has a more developed and therefore involving story than did "Suspiria", from which it is built. The art direction is almost as amazing as it was in that first film, and maybe more refined. There are many shots, including a nighttime scene in Central Park, that will have you gasping and marveling. Overall, if you watch it in tandem with "Suspiria", it will give you a better idea of what Dario Argento was trying for : a feeling of total isolation, created by matched and ever changing color patterns.
Two Thumbs Up, then, for "Inferno", with Huge Thumbs once again for the production design, and Two Thumbs for Keith Emerson's score, instantly recognizable as his style. It's a touch too rockin' in places, but overall very suspenseful. I think I'll have to order the soundtrack from Amazon. ////
That's all I know for tonight. I'm off work and have had two nice hikes out at Santa Susana the past two days. Sorry I missed you last night, but I didn't have a movie for ya and I was bone tired, coming off a four week work cycle.
But now I'm back and will see you tomorrow night, with much love sent to you until then.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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