Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Inferno (1980)

Inferno (1980)
Inferno (1980)

Genre: Horror • Giallo
Director: Dario Argento
Starring: Irene Miracle, Leigh McCloskey, Eleonara Giorgi, Daria Nicolodi, Alida Valli, Ania Pieroni
Language: Italian
Duration: 107 min.
Rating: 8.7  

Summary:
Young poetess Rose Elliot buys a book from a local antique dealer, a diary in Latin of an architect, E. Varelli.  She learns of the Three Mothers, and believes her apartment building is one of their houses.  Fearful, she pleads to her brother Mark who is studying musicology in Rome, to come to her aid.




Inferno by Dario Argeno, is the loose sequel to Suspiria, and the second film of The Three Mothers Trilogy.  It is an absolute visual masterpiece, awash with impossibly vivid colors and features with some of the greatest horror set pieces ever created.

Particularly the ultra creepy submerged ballroom scene near the beginning of the film, where Irene Miracle drops her keys into the water and swims down fully clothed to retrieve them. The dark and atmospheric underwater lighting, and the wonderful set design make it an unforgettable sequence. That along with a brief but intensely haunting appearance by Ania Pieroni, as the Mother of Tears holding a cat in a music hall, are the film's highlights, and some of my favorite scenes in any horror film.

The haunting visuals are helped along by a frightening soundtrack by progressive rock musician Keith Emerson. It doesn't have the same jarring impact as those of Goblin or the vibrant energy of Ennio Morricone, but it does fit into the hypnotic and dreamlike atmosphere that Argento creates.

Unfortunately the film is held back by a storyline, weak and incoherent even by Argento's standards, which makes Inferno seem to be a mixed collection of random scenes. But if you can view it as one long hallucinatory dream sequence and disregard the lack of plot or story, then you'll be rewarded with some of the most amazing visual sequences ever captured in any genre.

Inferno (1980)

Inferno (1980)

Inferno (1980)

Inferno (1980)

Inferno (1980)

Inferno (1980)

Inferno (1980)

Inferno (1980)

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