Main cast: Asia Argento (Sarah Mandy), Cristian Solimeno (Detective Enzo Marchi), Adam James (Michael Pierce), Moran Atias (Mater Lachrymarum), Valeria Cavalli (Marta), Philippe Leroy (Guglielmo De Witt), Daria Nicolodi (Elisa Mandy), Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni (Giselle), and Udo Kier (Padre Johannes)
Director: Dario Argento

Let’s start with due respect: Dario Argento has carved his name into the Mount Olympus of horror directors. With masterpieces like Suspiria, Deep Red, and Tenebrae, he shaped the genre like few others. Suspiria kicked off the Three Mothers trilogy with a blaze of color and unnerving terror back in 1977, followed by Inferno in 1980. Then, for 27 years, Argento seemed to have misplaced not only his script but possibly his motivation, until one day he decided, “If you want something done right, you have to write it yourself.”

Now, Mr Argento was pushing 70 when he made this film, and while I’m certainly not here to engage in ageism, one does have to wonder if his muse was taking a nap. While Suspiria was a near-mystical experience of horror, and Inferno, even with its flaws, managed moments of dark brilliance, Mother of Tears takes a rather dramatic tumble down the stairs. It’s like watching a faded rock star try to play the hits while forgetting half the lyrics.

The plot opens with an ancient urn being unearthed in a cemetery outside Rome, which, as any horror fan knows, is always a stellar idea. Inside are artifacts belonging to Mater Lachrymarum or Mother of Tears, the last and most powerful of the Three Mothers, and as soon as it’s opened, all hell quite literally breaks loose. Chaos and violence spread across the city like a plague, with random acts of insanity and witchcraft happening everywhere.

Enter Sarah Mandy, an American art student who, upon being present for the discovery, finds herself at the center of the unfolding apocalypse. As it turns out, Sarah has a mysterious supernatural legacy, revealed through some dubious visions and conveniently timed revelations. Guided by the ghost of her deceased mother, Elisa (who, by the way, drops in to deliver cryptic advice whenever the plot hits a lull), Sarah must now embrace her destiny to stop the Mother of Tears from taking over the world. Think of it as Buffy the Witch Slayer, minus the charm and humor, with a dash of bargain-bin Da Vinci Code mysticism.

Now, I watched the English version—if only for the thrill of hearing Asia Argento deliver her lines with all the emotional nuance of someone reading tax codes out loud. Sure, she’s speaking English here, but she and the other dubbers seem as committed to their roles as one would be to a temp job at the DMV. And whoever dubbed her mother, Elisa Mandy, apparently thought they were auditioning for a dramatic role in Days of Our Lives. The intensity is cranked up to eleven, which just makes Ms Argento’s lukewarm reactions even more hilarious. It’s like watching someone serenely nod along to a Shakespearean monologue while clearly wondering what’s for dinner.

Honestly, keeping the film in Italian with subtitles might have saved it from some of its cringe-worthy line deliveries. At least then, we could have focused on the atmosphere instead of being distracted by the audible apathy. But without the unintentional comedy of the awkwardly dubbed dialogue, there’d be little left to enjoy here apart from the blood and guts.

The characters, for their part, seem blissfully unaware that they’re being hunted by a murderous cult, choosing to engage in horror-movie “marked for death” behavior like having sex instead of, oh, I don’t know, fleeing to a remote bunker. Do they want to be eviscerated by crazy witches? One has to admire their dedication to genre conventions, if nothing else.

Speaking of eviscerations, the gore is where Mother of Tears actually shows some promise. The practical effects are gloriously gruesome, with a number of scenes sure to satisfy even the most jaded horror fans. But Dario Argento’s tendency to dispatch lesbian characters in especially brutal ways is rather tired by this point. It’s as if he’s working out some personal issues on-screen. Dario, my man, we have therapists for that now.

And then there’s the Mother of Tears herself. For a character who’s supposedly the most powerful and evil of the three witches, she spends most of the movie strutting around in the nude and hurling one-liners that sound like they were cribbed from a discount phrasebook. When she finally meets her end, it’s so anticlimactic that you almost feel embarrassed for her. You’ve waited three decades to see the grand culmination of this trilogy, and what do you get? A villainous fashion show followed by an exit so abrupt it feels like the film ran out of ideas before the credits did.

In the end, Mother of Tears serves as a bleak cautionary tale on the dangers of returning to the limelight after your prime has passed. Dario Argento, once a maestro of macabre beauty, has given us a film that feels more like a mid-life crisis than a triumphant finale. And let’s not even start on Dracula 3D. Some doors are better left closed.