Horrorfest 2014: Inferno

The 2^nd greatest Italian master of horror, Dario Argento, returns to Horrorfest with 1980's INFERNO. This movie has all the strengths and weaknesses of your average Argento flick. It never reaches the heights of greatness of his best work (DEEP RED) but it is definitely worth checking out.

INFERNO stars Leigh McCloskey as a music student in Rome who travels to New York to investigate some strange happenings when both his sister (Irene Miracle) and classmate (Eleonora Giorgi) are murdered in connection with a book called "The Three Mothers." The book claims 3 evil sisters control the world and live in buildings spread across the globe that the author, an architect, built.

One of the weaknesses of the movie is the pay off of this set up. The first half of the film, when we don't know what's going on, is one spectacular set piece after another, each featuring a different character. I like how it jumps from one character to another, just to have them dispatched, before eventually settling on a main character about halfway through the movie. When it does settle down, though, is when you want it to kind of start making sense, and it never really does.

This is both the genius of Argento and the drawback – the limitless imagination brings thrilling scenes, like a woman ill-advisedly swimming into a water-filled hole in the basement of her building only to be confronted with a corpse and unable to find her way out again, or another woman encountering a hell-like dungeon in the depths of a library inhabited by a sinister cloaked figure. But, they never quite add up. So you have to decide: you want style or substance?

Speaking of style, there's plenty of it. Like all Argento films, this one has beautiful, bright cinematography full of skillfully placed primary colors. It's just great to look at. The opening few scenes that kept me guessing and the beautiful images throughout were enough to keep me entertained, even if the story was lacking.