Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Wizard-8 I feel I should first mention that I am not an authority on Dario Argento - I've only seen a few of his movies in my life, though I admired what I saw. But I feel I should also mention that those movies of his I saw before "Mother of Tears" were his *older* movies. I had heard that his more recent movies were not that good, so I avoided them. But when I found "Mother of Tears" at my library, I decided to give it a look.After seeing it, I think I can understand why so many Argento fans have been disappointed with his recent movies. In fairness, I didn't find the movie completely bad. It gets off to a good start, being intriguing and fast-paced. But not long into the movie, things fall apart. The low budget of the enterprise is pretty evident, such as the fact Argento isn't able to show much of the scale of the horrible things happening in Rome (we mostly have to hear about it.) There also isn't that much atmosphere built by Argento. The biggest problem with the movie is that it soon becomes slow and boring for the most part. True, there are some gross and/or shocking bits (particularly one scene with a baby), but this stuff only consists of a little bit of the movie. More likely than not you'll come extremely close to nodding off while watching.

Andy Sure it's not the new "Inferno" or "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage", but we finally have glimpses of the old "Argento's style" back! A good, gory, horror movie, average scary scenes, nice FX and great story.This is the third movie about the "three mothers", "inferno" and "suspiria" are the other two, and it close the circle of the three demons story.As I said we are still a little far from the great directing we had in the first 70ish Dario's movies, but at least it's far better than the latest releases we have seen! The story goes on nicely, Asia is perfect in the leading role, Udo Kier find his "usual" bad ending in one of the best scenes of the movie (and of latest 20 years horror movies!), demons and gore scenes are really well made with the right amount of suspense.. what else do you need in a classic gore story! Sure, in this "twilight" era, when horror movie seems closer to its sunset, you'd like to see more movies like this!

Scott LeBrun Filmmaker Dario Argento's concluding film in his "Three Mothers" trilogy (also featuring "Suspiria" (1977) and "Inferno" (1980)) is definitely not in the same league as the first two films. It's a certifiably wild and over the top succession of morbid images that does boast a certain degree of showmanship. Dario's daughter Asia stars as Sarah Mandy, a student of art restoration and archaeology in Rome who comes into possession of some ancient artifacts, the discovery of which spells doom for everybody as Mater Lachrymarum, the third of the deadly Three Mothers, visits evil upon the city of Rome; suicide is rampant and hostilities flare. Sarah, whose mother had once fought the forces of evil, eventually realizes that it's all on her to save the day, although she does get some help along the way, from people like Marta Colussi (Valeria Cavalli), Detective Enzo Marchi (Cristian Solimeno), and Father Johannes (Udo Kier, who'd previously been featured in "Suspiria"). Kier isn't around for very many scenes, but he's always welcome no matter how small his part may be, and it's also worth it just to see Asia share some scenes with her real-life mom Daria Nicolodi, who plays her mom in the film. As one can expect from a Dario Argento film, there's not a whole lot of sense here, and the spectacle does overwhelm what attempts are made at exposition. One very unfortunate fact here is that this is nowhere near as thickly atmospheric and beautifully lit as "Suspiria" or "Inferno"; this also does not have the feel of a freaky fairy tale as its predecessors, functioning in a very modern mode. Asia tries, but is not as engaging a presence as Jessica Harper or Irene Miracle. Composer Claudio Simonetti's work is of course good but just not that memorable. At the least, horror fans can delight in a film that delivers gore by the bucketful; some of it is so outrageous that it will have them roaring with appreciative laughter. And one thing that deserves a mention is that Moran Atias is far and away the sexiest of these three Mothers, looking quite delectable in her birthday suit. Dario does give the proceedings a fairly apocalyptic feel, and there is some delicious nastiness in the insane climax, but the ending is overall not terribly satisfying. People who love and admire Dario's previous films in this series may regard this as a real comedown, but taken for what it is, it's pretty entertaining. Seven out of 10.

Bjorn (ODDBear) I saw "Mother of Tears" about two years ago and resisted the urge to comment on it then. I've found that Argento's films almost always improve with repeated viewings and that's the case with this film. Overall the film is somewhat disappointing but the positives are larger in number than I originally thought. The biggest beef I have (and I base this on what I personally think rather than basing it on hard fact) is the rushed feel of the film. I remember reading that Argento was going to complete his "Three Mothers" trilogy and soon afterwards it was done. It opened to disastrous reviews and when I got my hands on it I basically jumped on the bandwagon and trashed it. A lot of stupid things here; horrible performances by Asia, Adam James and Cristian Solimendo, a completely clueless sequence of events, a miserable depiction of Daria Nicolodi as a friendly ghost, over-the-top gore, low budget that really hurts the look of the film, laughably funny depictions of deadly followers of The Mother of Tears who look like an Alice Cooper fan club, cringe-inducing dialog and a silly resolution. Well, fortunately time (and a second viewing) healed most of this. This isn't all bad - in fact - some of it's very good. What probably derailed me at the start is the way Argento chose to film this final chapter. He doesn't go for the dreamy and colorful visuals and unearthly atmosphere like in "Suspiria" and "Inferno" but rather plays it pretty straight; with plain daylight scenes a plenty and a no-frills display of the night scenes (curiously he does insert a soundtrack very reminiscent of "Suspiria" (the WITCH...creepy voice) and it only serves as a reminder of the original masterpiece; so I question his wisdom there). Look-wise this film looks more like "The Card Player" and "Do You Like Hitchcock?", in short; like latter day Argento. With this in mind I was very irritated with the opening gore filled entrance of the Witch's evil minions who quite nastily dismember a woman. But in fact it's not a fault but a logical continuation of the "Three Mothers trilogy" as these stories are "Nightmares caught on film" and therefore; don't really follow any straight logic. I just wish Dario had chose to film this with more color-insanity and dreamlike atmosphere; it would have fitted better there. I blame this on rushing things. While there are visuals here to admire (the steady cam shot of Asia entering the Witch's lair a particular fav), this feels rushed. An obvious low budget does hinder Argento in displaying convincingly a second fall of Rome due to the Witch's arrival. And on that subject; the Witch's groupies are really laugh-inducing; and in a bad way. A second viewing does not change that but merely confirms it. Anyway; talking about the story and the script. It's best to think of them as separate entities. The original story concerning the Three Mothers and their evil influences from different parts of the world is very strong and compelling. "Mother of Tears" nicely ties all films together and there's a great scene at the hour mark where Asia's character reads an alchemist's book on the buildings constructed for the evil witches. But the script is shoddily written, has numerous moments of silly dialog and a very silly conclusion.But in the spirit of it's superior predecessors the film is best enjoyed when thinking of it as a nightmare caught on film. The loose logic of events actually serve as a plus and do manage to generate a few uneasy moments for the viewer. The gore (and there's plenty of it) is well done and it's long been said that The Mother of Tears was the most vicious of the Three. So the gore maybe isn't too out of place. In the end; "Mother of Tears" is an enjoyable Argento film. There's no denying the fact that for it's entire running time there isn't a dull moment and there's always something happening. Asia's performance improved on second viewing (but it's far from great) but Adam James is still intolerable. A larger budget and a more relaxed filming schedule is something I personally think would have resulted in a better film (along with a better written script) but it's fairly good nonetheless. It's been said that Argento's admirers are also his fiercest critics but thankfully we know from experience that there's always more to his films than is perceived on initial viewing. Maybe the third time I give this a spin I'll be completely blown away. Stranger things...