Dario Argento's Inferno [DVD] [1980]

"Inferno" (the Italian word for Hell) is the second installment in Dario Argento's "Three Mothers" trilogy and the follow-up to his classic, "Suspiria". The Three Mothers are a deadly triumvirate of witches that live in three special houses designed by an architect and alchemist called Varelli - Mater Suspiriorum (The Mother of Sighs) lives in Freiburg, Mater Tenebrarum (The Mother of Shadows) lives in New York and Mater Lachrymarum (The Mother Of Tears) lives in Rome.

"Suspiria" focused on The Mother of Sighs and "Inferno" mainly deals with The Mother of Shadows in New York but we do briefly see The Mother of Tears in some scenes set in Rome in "Inferno" as well.

"Inferno" begins in New York with a young woman called Rose Elliot (Irene Miracle) reading an old book called The Three Mothers by E. Varelli. She becomes intrigued by the legend of the witches and decides to try and find out more. What strange secrets does the large apartment building hold where she lives? Unfortunately, her curiosity leads to her being brutally murdered on a stormy April night. Before she died, Rose contacted her brother Mark (Leigh McCloskey), a music student in Rome, and he travels to New York to find out what is going on and ends up as bemused as the rest of us!!!

If there was ever a film where style spectacularly triumphs over substance then "Inferno" is it. This film is mainly just a series of amazing set-pieces with no real coherent, driving narrative but you end up not really worrying about the plot (or lack of it) because, first of all, the film looks so beautiful and, secondly, Argento is such a skillful film maker that he can tell a story purely visually and he can sometimes make even the most mundane scenes seem interesting. A prime example of this is the scene in Rome when one of Mark's friends takes a taxi ride in the rain. In any other film such a scene would be ordinary, or boring even, but in "Inferno" this scene becomes something special thanks to the use of colour, lighting and music. By the way, the taxi driver is the same bloke who drives the taxi that picks up Suzy Banyon (Jessica Harper) at the airport at the beginning of "Suspiria".

Like "Suspiria", "Inferno" was shot using Three-Strip Technicolor, a type of film stock that is meant to highlight the primary colours. This technique, coupled with Argento's incredible use of lighting, gives "Inferno" a surrealistic, dream-like quality that is perfect for its bizarre subject matter. Prog-rock keyboard legend, Keith Emerson (from "The Nice" and "Emerson, Lake & Palmer") contributes a wonderful orchestral music score that enhances the proceedings immensely. Keith has composed quite a few great film scores over the years but his score for "Inferno" must rank as one of his very best. Keith's music in this film ranges from being gentle and beautiful to being powerful and VERY frightening.

I think that it seems to be quite a common practice in horror cinema (especially in Italian horror films) to throw in a few gruesomely-inventive murders if the story starts to become a bit dull and "Inferno" certainly has its fair share of fiendish killings. A man and woman are brutally stabbed to death in an apartment, another woman is attacked by a clowder of vicious cats, one hapless dude has his eyeballs pulled out of their sockets and, best of all, a weird book seller is attacked and bitten by hordes of hungry rats whilst he is trying to drown a sackful of cats in New York's Central Park during a lunar eclipse and he is then hacked to death by a hot dog vendor (no, I'm not making this up)!!!

I guess it was scenes like these that were responsible for "Inferno" making its may onto the DPP's official "Nasty List" in the UK in the early 1980s resulting in the film being banned on video in the UK for a number of years. If you look closely enough though, there is also a fair degree of deliberate, underlying humour in this film.

So, to sum up "Inferno", it is a visually-stunning, often violent and occasionally terrifying piece of cinema that possesses a nightmarish quality. It is ultimately a marvellous achievement by Argento where style is victorious over content by a huge margin. "Inferno" certainly lives up to its title too during the fiery climax. In fact there are few other horror movies that can match the visual splendour of "Inferno". Its predecessor, "Suspiria", is one and Roger Corman's "The Masque Of The Red Death" and Masaki Kobayashi's "Kwaidan" are two others that spring to mind but all of these films belong to a special, select group of movies that are beautiful to behold.

This DVD version from Anchor Bay USA presents the film uncut in its correct aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Fox Video's 1993 VHS tape was slightly cut - a few seconds of footage was removed from a scene where a cat is eating a mouse! Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't cats normally do that sort of thing?

This movie has also been released on DVD by Blue Underground and another DVD release from Arrow Video is imminent. All I can say is that the picture quality on Anchor Bay's disc is excellent and the film looks superb. Extras include a short introduction to the film by Dario Argento, a trailer, a stills gallery and talent biographies. "Inferno" is definitely an essential film to have in your collection if you are a fan of Dario Argento and Italian horror films.

Being the huge Argento fanboy that I am, I ordered this Arrow Blu-ray along with my own country's version released by Blue Underground. After watching both twice, I personally prefer the Arrow, which surprised me because after much research on-line it seems most people prefer the Blue Underground. Even stranger, I've compared screencaps of both releases from review sites and actually preferred the Blue Underground version in the still images, but for some reason this Arrow release looks better in motion. I think the color palette plays an important part in conveying the atmosphere in this film, so it's very important to get it right. I found the Blue Underground's colors dark and bold (more 'horror movie' style) while the Arrow's were bright and almost neon (more 'dream-like'). Comparing the two, I find the Arrow's color palette suits the film better for me. The Blue Underground release seemed almost too dark in some places and the colors, while bold and beautiful, just weren't as bright and surreal as the Arrow's. I guess it's a simple question of if you like the dark, bold colors or the bright ones, but I know which one I preferred. I've also heard a lot of negative comments about Arrow's use of DNR, however there are a lot of scenes in this Arrow release that contain a good amount of grain in them so these accusations may be unfounded. I don't think they got carried away with the DNR--most shots just look cleaner, and as for the accusations the characters look "waxy", the flesh tones look fine to me.

I'll also add that the sound on this release is noticeably better than the Blue Underground, and I don't even have a sound system hooked up, just my regular TV speakers and I could still tell the difference.

Finally here it is, "Inferno", the sequel to "Suspiria" and in many ways a tough competitor for the legendary film brought to us in a two disc special edition, uncut for the first time in the UK from an HD transfer. For those who don't already know this film, the second in a trilogy is about three evil witches who wish to rule the world, this film focuses on the mother of darkness spreading evil and destroying all who are in her way from a New York hotel and the backstory of the alchemist who created the houses of the three mothers, its a surreal and bizarre experience visually similar to some of Mario Bava's films (think "Blood and Black Lace" or "Kill Baby... Kill!") but somewhat different in style and subject matter, its distinctly Argento but not quite like his giallo, one of his best in my opinion.

Now to the specifics of this current edition, included here are a choice of four covers, the one most advertised is all new artwork and to be blunt is abysmal, it completely misleads one into taking a haunting, serious atmospheric horror for some kind of sex sleaze film, now I'm a Franco fan so it goes without saying I don't mind those type of films but the cover does the film no justice, this quibble aside there are four reversible covers and the other three look pretty good so switch the cover and problem solved (though it seems daft for Arrow to choose that cover to market the film), also included is a two sided poster (sadly one side is the new artwork but the other is from the UK quad and looks cool) an interesting mini booklet and six postcards, the transfer as mentioned earlier is HD and looks pretty good, you can choose a number of audio tracks including the Italian track with English subtitles, I watched in english stereo and it sounded great but can't comment on the 5.1 as I've an insufficient surround system.

The features on disc one are good, one is hidden on the main menu (highlight setup and press up) where Argento talks about Bava though sadly not in much detail, Dario Argento and Daria Nicolodi both get special features of around 15 minutes where they reflect on the film and their careers in general and Luigi Cozzi talks about his version of "The Black Cat" which is seen a semi-sequel but in his eyes more a tribute to the series, one huge complaint is that Blu-Ray gets an extra feature where Irene Miracle, Keith Emerson and Tim Lucas give their thoughts on the film, this sort of format pushing is really irritating and not what I'd expect from Arrow who's copy of "City of the Living Dead" was perfect both on DVD and Blu-Ray and has really left me disheartened as to the companies supposed fan loyalties, disc two has an old Argento documentary An Eye for Horror which is great for those just getting into his work but many older fans will have seen it before, Argento and Lamberto Bava appear on another feature (the one from the old Anchor Bay US disc) which is quite a good one and its wrapped up with a huge Argento trailer reel.

In conclusion this is without doubt a great edition of "Inferno" alhough I can't condone either the terrible cover (switch it and ignore it, no big deal I guess) nor the missing feature on the DVD, If you've got a Blu-Ray player you probably won't care as you'll pick up the Blu-Ray disc but absolute completists still not HD compatible might want to hold out until they've upgraded for the extra feature.

Note: US company Blue Underground have now put out a Blu-ray and DVD which has a tad less features but a better transfer and German company Camera Obscura intend to put this film out on Blu-ray in the coming month's so you may wish to hold out to see which is best before buying with public opinion largely swaying towards the German release which promises an all new HD transfer supervised by the films cinematographer to look its absolute best and an exclusive 80 minute documentary.