Inferno -the second entry in Argento's Three Mothers trilogy- does feel like a direct continuation of Suspiria in terms of style and atmosphere. Dario once again bathes each scene in beautiful shades of red and other colors while providing a soundtrack from Keith Emerson that really makes certain moments standout, despite not being as prominent or memorable as Goblin's overall. While it nails the tone, the movie isn't able to recapture that same magic as the writing is much weaker. Inferno is often criticized for not making any sense. Personally, I had no trouble following what was going on, but was very aware of the various plot holes and random or downright nonsensical events that really would have benefited from some form of explanation. For instance, if the mysterious cult of witch followers didn't want people to read the book about the three mothers then why did they leave a copy of it in the local library just above their alchemy lab? As far as the more random stuff goes, there's a scene early on in the movie where the protagonist has a bizarre encounter with a girl who is clearly out of place in his music class. It's implied that she's the main witch in the movie, but she only shows up once after that for like a split second and isn't seen again. Argento later revealed that this is actually the third sister and antagonist of his much later film The Mother of Tears, but how on earth were we supposed to figure that out? She shows up like once in a scene so far detatched from the action at hand it's easy to dismiss her as a bit of unimportant weirdness. Which I suppose is all her inclusion really is anyways. There's also the part where the antique shop owner tries to drown a bag of cats only to end up murdered by a random hotdog vender. His demise isn't even related to the "Mother of Darkness." Why wasn't the character killed off in a way that tied into the main story rather than some odd side excursion? It's not even like he was some unimportant supporting character. He had relevancy in the main thread. One other thing that kind of bugged me is that it was implied that hotel staff worked for witch in the same manner the faculty of the dance academy did in Suspiria, but it's never fleshed out. They even add another plot hole to the mix by killing everyone looking into the three mothers other than the protagonist. They even go out of their way to save him. That whole "heart medicine" scene was weird. Also what was up with Varelli? Writing woes aside, there's a lot I like about this movie. It's a bizarre descent into the macabre to be sure, but its eccentric flourishes and oddball characters are actually quite charming. It's like the intention was to remake Suspiria with a higher body count, only the people involved sort of forgot about the script somewhere along the way. The frequent kills are quite gruesome even with the cheap ketchup blood. I feel like a really good job was done establishing this middle chapter (and Suspiria by extension) as part of a shared, ongoing story. Probably one of the few things other than the visuals that was handled with real elegance. As much as I've crapped on the script, I will say that it very natural for the protagonist to never fully grasp what's happening. It makes sense for him to walk into the final confrontation almost completely clueless as to what's going on given how he never had access to the full puzzle or witnessed any of the murders occurring around him. A nice touch that proves even the writing isn't all bad.