Nobody watches Dario Argento movies for lucid plots or nuanced characters. Inferno (1980) shows Argento at his fever dream best, a supernatural slasher film more striking than comprehensible.Rose Elliot (Irene Miracle) discovers a book entitled The Three Mothers, a Latin text telling of three evil spirits who rule the world. This sets in motion a macabre chain of events, as Rose and her brother Mark (Leigh McCloskey) search for clues in New York, London and Rome. Their search leads to an escalating body count, leaving Mark to face the Mother of Darkness alone.
Inferno is nominally a sequel to Suspiria, recapturing that film's mad aesthetic. Argento revives that movie's wild color schemes, bathing sets in demonic red and soothing blue, creeping shadows hiding clawed demons, a menagerie of animals (rats, cats, iguanas) portending death. The international settings give the movie a broader scope than usual, with murder scenes filmed in Rome and New York's Central Park, capped by Keith Emerson's jolting goth rock score.
As expected, Inferno's storyline is a complete mess, with Argento roving between personages slain within minutes of their introduction. But his slayings are as garish and inventive as ever, with characters victimized by sewer rats and sharpened glass, tearing through cloth sheets, plunging into watery crypts or evading fires. Argento prolongs the killings for maximum gruesomeness; when one suffering character's decapitated by a butcher knife, it's a relief!
Admittedly, Inferno's acting is poor as its storyline: TV actors Irene Miracle and Leigh McCloskey are inert, while Italian actors like Alida Valli are hamstrung by silly characterizations. But the movie delivers on its promise of garish executions staged stylishly, and that's all we ask.
