Horror Extreme Movie Review - Inferno

Inferno is the second part of Italian horror movie producer Dario Argento's "Three Mothers Trilogy". Released in 1980, it follows on from Suspiria and concerns Mater Tenebrarum, the Mother of Darkness/Shadows.

The movie begins in New Your where a poetess, Rose Elliot (Irene Miracle) discovers a book in the Antique shop next to her apartment block called "The Three Mothers". The book claims to contain diary extracts from an architect named Dr. Varelli who claims to have helped construct three buildings to house three witches. The buildings were the focus of each witch's magic and enabled them to wield great power. Rose suspects her apartment to be one such building and after a bit of investigation and corpse dodging in the building's flooded ballroom she discovers this to be true. Needing a bit of moral support she writes a letter to her brother Mark, a musicology student in Rome.

After reading the letter (and a strange encounter with Mater Lacrimarum, the third mother), Mark travels to New York. Mark arrives in New York but his sister seems to have disappeared, unknown to him her investigation aroused suspicions and she met her untimely demise during an encounter with Mater Tenebrarum.

Mark sets out to discover what has happened to his sister and soon begins to unlock the secrets of the mysterious building. The body count rises as Mark involves more people in his investigation, but he soon discovers what he is looking for and confronts the maker of the buildings and The Mother of Darkness.

As with Suspiria this movie is more a work of art than a straightforward story. Each scene is beautifully lit in greens, reds and blues and the bizarreness of the apartment creates an absorbing experience, combined with the horrific and slow deaths that the character's meet when they threaten to uncover the second mother, a truly suspenseful atmosphere is created for the viewer. The story is even more disjointed than its predecessor and can be quite random in places with the individual's motivations sometimes hard to fathom, but this does not affect the overall experience of the movie.

This movie does not quite match the shock element put across by Suspiria but it is a worthy sequel and a must for any fan of gothic Italian Horror.