Review: Inferno (1980) ★★
It’s impossible to consider the impact of Italian supernatural horror films on the broader horror genre without looking at the work of Dario Argento. The original Suspiria is both a masterpiece of style and a highly influential horror film. That said, Dario Argento’s grand vision that eventually became the Three Mothers trilogy is at times brilliant, and at times tediously unnecessary. Unfortunately, the second installment in the trilogy, Inferno, does not do justice to its predecessor.
Inferno’s plot continues the myth of the Three Mothers, a group of evil witches that manipulate and control the world through “sorrow, tears, and darkness.” After reading a mysterious book entitled The Three Mothers, Rose, a poet living in New York City, believes that one of the witches is living somewhere in her apartment building. After looking for clues in the basement, Rose discovers a decomposing body. Concerned for her safety, she writes a letter to her brother, Mark, who lives in Rome. When those around Mark start dying in strange ways, he travels to New York to find Rose and investigate the mystery of the Three Mothers.
Argento checked all the boxes with Inferno, but somehow it doesn’t live up to almost any of his other films. The operatic rock soundtrack is both jarring and frightening, and the film maintains much of the same visual virtuoso as Suspiria. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t make much sense at all. The scenes fit together like oil and water; as a spectator, it gives you the feeling that Argento is administering a test for which you are completely unprepared. I found myself straining to make sense of the plot, trying to figure out how tertiary characters fit into the larger themes and the mythology of the Three Mothers, to no avail.
Like many other Italian horror films, a lot of time and effort was put into the death scenes, in which the victims are all despatched in gruesome and spectacular ways. However, without much context, these moments fall flat. In fact, without a comprehensible or interesting story, Inferno feels like a hollow imitation of other great Italian horror films. Suspiria is often remembered as Argento’s magnum opus because it had all the best elements of an Italian horror film, without the tediousness of subpar writing.
A lot of what makes Italian horror films so interesting is that they blend elements of horror and mystery together so seamlessly. Argento’s Deep Red is largely about a murder investigation, but it is easily one of his best and most horrific films. It doesn’t follow the banality of a police procedural, and the scenes of carnage feel integral to the plot, rather than unnecessary insertions.
Unfortunately, Inferno does not maintain the same formula. Mysterious killers in black appear and disappear throughout the film, and little justification is ever given for how or why the killings occur. Rather than a slow build toward a satisfying climax, Inferno feels drawn out, as if there wasn’t enough material to craft an interesting story in the first place. The deaths are unnecessary, and oftentimes, the film gives us no reason to care about the characters who are dying on screen.
Die hard fans of Dario Argento may disagree with my analysis, but if you look at his larger body of work, it is easy to see that Inferno is far from the best. While the film has grown in popularity in recent years as a cult classic, there is little reason for this shift in appeal, other than the fact that it is a followup to Argento’s most successful film, Suspiria. In any case, if you are curious about Italian horror of the 1980’s, Inferno may be worth a watch, but there are far better and more entertaining examples out there.
Rating: ★★ out of 5
Inferno is currently available to rent or purchase via Amazon right here.
