(I've heard of some buildings with water in the basement, but this is just insane...)
CAST: Leigh McCloskey, Irene Miracle, Eleanora Giorgi, Daria Nicolodi, Sacha Pitoeff, Gabriele Lavia, Alida Valli, Veronica Lazar.
DIRECTOR: Dario Argento
WARNING: SPOILERS and seriously surreal shite and crazed cats lurking right up ahead....
After the worldwide success of SUSPIRIA in 1977, Twentieth Century Fox - who had distributed the film in the United States under their "International Classics" banner - commissioned Dario Argento to create a sequel. Nice to know that even back then, the powers-that-be in Hollywood were already co-opting (or is that corrupting?) foreign talent and trying to domesticate them. Anyhow, the result was INFERNO - which ironically never saw a North American theatrical release because of a regime change at Fox. Hard to say for certain if it would've matched SUSPIRIA's success had it not been so unceremoniously shelved here, but my personal opinion is "not bloody likely." Pun intended on the "bloody" part. This isn't to say that INFERNO is a bad film. Far from it. It's certainly more colorful, ambitious, and complex than most projects American directors and writers were churning out at the time. Indeed, it has some of the most beautiful and haunting images put to celluloid, with some set-pieces that are downright bravura. Nevertheless, there's no getting around it: INFERNO is no SUSPIRIA.
INFERNO begins in New York, where our ostensible heroine Rose Elliott (Irene Miracle) is a poet researching an obscure myth: The Legend of the Three Mothers. Apparently a trio of bad-ass supernatural beings with domains in New York, Rome, and Frieburg, these women (if you can call them that) are essentially powerful witches who have many followers and prefer to fly under the radar. Anyone who runs afoul of them or their flunkies gets axed - literally. Now, just to provide some context and continuity, it's implied that the eventually-destroyed Tanz Akademie from SUSPIRIA was actually the Frieburg manse of the Mother of Sighs - or Mater Suspiriorum. According to the myth, Mater Tenebrarum presides over New York, and Mater Lacrimarum rules over Rome. Turns out that Rose has been noting some strange occurrences in the gothic apartment building that she lives in, and is slowly starting to suspect that - GASP! - it might be home to the Mother of Darkness - Mater Tenebrarum.
Evidently, the book on the legend talks about three clues that give away the crazy broads' homes: (1) in the basement of each house is a portrait of the Mother living there, (2) a "sickly-sweet" smell permeates that surrounding air, and (3) third, and most fucking cryptic, is that the last clue is apparently "under the soles of your shoes." Rose fairly scratches her head over this, then promptly does the following: (1) fires off a letter to her brother Mark in Rome; unaware of a thing called "email" lurking somewhere in the future, (2) questions Kazanian (Sacha Pitoeff), the rare book shop owner who sold her the book, on the legend, (3) and plunges into the basement to search for a portrait with M. Ten's name on it. And when I say "plunges" I do mean "plunges." You see, the basement is filled with water. To the brim. And to make matters worse, Rose drops her keys into the submerged room below and has to swim after them. After several years of pretending she's The Little Mermaid, Rose eventually catches sight of a picture with the words MATER TENEBRARUM. But then a rotting corpse bumps into her and pretty much ruins her buzz. Rose flees back to her apartment, convinced now that she should've gone for that duplex in Greenwich Village.
Meanwhile, Rose's letter reaches her brother Mark (Leigh McCloskey), a music student in Rome. Unfortunately, before Mark can so much as read past the first two lines, a mysterious beauty with a cat shows up in his music class and starts giving him major googley eyes. This causes him to get dizzy and leave his desk abruptly when the bell rings, leaving the letter behind for his pal, Sarah (Eleanora Giorgi) to - I shit you not - rifle through like it's the latest issue of the Vogue. Evidently, Rose shares her theory about the Three Mothers with Mark, as well as the address of Mater Lacrimarum's house in Rome. Sarah, being a nosy biyatch, heads straight over to investigate. Turns out the building is a library that - oh, why not - just happens to have a copy of the same book on the legend that freaked Rose out. Deciding that reading other people's letters is simply not tacky enough, Sarah decides to graduate to petty theft and tries to sneak out with the book. Unfortunately, she gets lost and runs into a hulking creep with ugly hands who (1) sees her carrying the book, (2) realizes she's trying to abscond with it, (3) and chases her through the basement (again with the fucking basements). Fortunately, Sarah manages to get away. Unfortunately, the hulking creep follows her to her flat, where he/she/it punishes Sarah for being a shitty library patron by - burying a knife in her back.
After learning of Sarah's murder, Mark calls Rose in New York, who is upset that Mark never got a chance to read the letter. She doesn't have much of a chance to bitch him out, though, because suddenly her line goes dead. And someone tries to break in to her flat, causing her to flee down a back stairwell and into... some sort of storage area. Pursued by the shadowy assassin, Rose hides in some rooms so run-down you can't believe that she's still in the same building. Suffice it to say, management better have some remodeling plans in the near future. Not that it's going to be Rose's problem for long, though, because as she passes a window, a pair of gnarly (not in a good way) hands reaches out and grab her by her skull. This leads to an unexpected death scene so utterly vicious that it will either leave you breathless with terror or laughter - or both.
Mark arrives in New York to discover the following things: (1) Rose is missing (obviously), (2) Rose's best friend Elise (Daria Nicolodi) is concerned about Rose's obsession with The Three Mothers, and (3) gets her ass mauled by some rabid cats then (4) her neck sliced by a sharp knife - just for trying to help Mark unravel the mystery. Mark, on the other hand, escapes unscathed. With Elise now unaccounted for, he turns to that gimp Kazanian for more info. Kazanian demonstrates good-old-fashioned New York hospitality by telling Mark to go fuck himself. The joke's on Kazanian, though, because that night he is attacked by a crazed hot dog vendor in Central Park while being devoured by rats. No, I am not drunk. I assure you this is an actual scene from the film. Ask Argento. He wrote the goddamned script. Not me.
Anyhow, Mark eventually figures out that the secret passage to Mater Tenebrarum's lair is through the crawlspace between the floors. He follows the passageway and discovers that: (1) Mater Tenebrarum is the building's nurse (Veronica Lazar), (2) she's one wicked bitch, and (3) has a major crush on him. Note how she pretty much killed off every single female character that was in a position to help him. M. Ten seductively invites Mark to join her on some fucked-up journey that sounds like a cross between a hard orgasm and a massive concussion. Fortunately, Mark has enough brain cells to know a crazed supernatural banshee when he sees one - and books it out of there. Rejection apparently causes the Mother of Darkness to turn into The Grim Reaper - and the building to explode into flames.
The flick ends with Mark barreling out into the street - just as firefighters rush into save Mater Tenebrarum from herself. Thankfully, they fail and the evil cow burns to death.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: There are many Argento fans who rate INFERNO quite highly, some even believing it to be superior to SUSPIRIA. I am not one of them. Much like FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET, INFERNO has some great set-pieces, but unlike those of SUSPIRIA they do not come together to drive the plot forward. Instead, the narrative lurches from sequence to sequence without any rising tension. Much of this is due to the fact that Argento tries to cram elements of both Mater Tenebrarum and Mater Lacrimarum's stories into the plot - instead of concentrating on only one mother like in SUSPIRIA. Indeed, the only reason INFERNO scores a *** rating is because of the sheer brilliance and beauty of some of its set-pieces: (1) Rose's underwater foray into the submerged basement, (2) Sarah's chase scene at the library and her apartment, (3) Rose's extended stalking sequence in her apartment and her jarringly unexpected death, (4) and Elise's encounter with the cats in the attic.
Unfortunately, these scenes do not hang on a kinetic narrative the way SUSPIRIA's did. The main reason is that Mark is supposed to be the main character, but we barely spend any time with him. The story always veers away from him to follow secondary characters who only end up getting murdered, so much so that we never get a sense of who he is as a human being. Unlike Susy Banyon in SUSPIRIA who actively unravels the mystery and whom we sympathized with, Mark is simply passive and doesn't go into action until close to the end when he uncovers the "secret under the soles of your shoes." Nor do we feel an affinity for him. By contrast, all the other characters who actively try to solve the puzzle (Rose, Sarah, Elise) end up getting killed. And we cared about them.
Of the international cast, Irene Miracle, Eleanora Giorgi, and Daria Nicolodi fare the best. I used to think that Leigh McCloskey turned in a weak performance as Mark, and as such was the reason for INFERNO not being able to measure up to SUSPIRIA. Now I realize that he was doing what he could with what he was given - which was not much. If Argento had polished his script and allowed his own protagonist to be an active player in more scenes, it might have been a worthy follow-up to SUSPIRIA. As it is, it's merely a notch above average - and mostly due to the trademark Argento style that creates some memorable and nightmarish images.
For the third and final chapter in the Three Mothers Trilogy, MOTHER OF TEARS, Argento would wisely correct himself and revert back to linear storytelling told mainly from the POV of his protagonist. Good call.
