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Inferno
Rose Elliot (Midnight Express' Irene Miracle) acquires a strange occult book that seems to suggest that her apartment building is home to a powerful, ancient Evil. She writes her brother Mark (soap opera star Leigh McCloskey), who is studying music in Rome, to come to New York to help her investigate. Mark's girlfriend Sara (Behind the Door' s Eleonora Giorgi) reads the letter and soon afterward is gruesomely murdered. By the time Mark arrives in New York, Rose has already disappeared. With help from Rose's friend and neighbor Countess Elise (Argento's real-life companion Daria Nicolodi), Mark slowly unravels the mystery and is eventually face-to-face with "Mater Tenebrarum", The Mother of Shadows (a woefully cheap-looking skeleton / spectre). The film's highlight is certainly the underwater "cellar pool" sequence that was designed and executed by the great Mario Bava (son Lamberto was assistant director and coaxed Dad out of retirement to lend his expertise). Almost completely silent, it is a nail-biting ballet, and ranks with the best set-pieces in Argento's entire ouvre. Animal-lovers be warned--there is a shot of a housecat eating a struggling, very live mouse, and in a scene where a character is attacked and killed by feral cats, it's obvious that someone is simply tossing the cats in from offscreen! Anchor Bay's 1.85:1 transfer (16X9 enhanced) is absolutely stunning. Never has the film looked (or sounded) this good.The colors are rich and true (though not as saturated as Deep Red or Suspiria ), and the blacks are perfectly black. Despite the package's claim that Inferno is being "presented for the first time uncut and uncensored", the film was never subject to cuts in its previous U.S. video incarnations (though it was horribly pan-and-scanned). The new Dolby Digital 5.1 sound mix is excellent (and, as with Deep Red , the original 2.0 mono mix is included for purists). Keith Emerson (of Emerson, Lake and Palmer fame)'s progressive-rock piano score is interesting on its own, but often doesn't suit the film. Emerson fared better with scores for Fulci's Murder Rock (1984) and Michele Soavi's The Church (1988, which Argento produced). The primary supplement is a newly recorded, 8 minute video interview with Argento and Lamberto Bava (in Italian, with optional English subtitles). Since the announced Argento/Bava audio commentary didn't come to pass, this little peek will have to do. A U.S. theatrical trailer is also included, along with a photo gallery and the obligatory talent biographies. Although Inferno never makes a hell of a lot of sense, it is (at times) suspenseful and always beautiful to look at, and I highly recommend the dvd for its impeccable presentation. Now, if Anchor Bay could only secure the rights to Suspiria ...! OFFICIAL WEB
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Inferno is the second installment in Argento's projected
"Three Mothers Trilogy" (the first being Suspiria; the
third,The Mother of Tears, has yet to be made). Loosely based
on an essay by Thomas DeQuincey (author of Confessions of an
English Opium Eater), the trilogy is centered around three evil
witches (The Three Mothers) living separately in New York, Rome
and Freiburg, Germany, that are responsible for all human suffering.
