This long-delayed third and final entry in Dario Argento's Three Mother's trilogy was always going to be held under a fair amount of scrutiny. The original film Suspiria remains one of the most celebrated works in all of horror to this very day, and it's sequel Inferno, while nowhere near as acclaimed, still carries a respectable reputation among the hardcore genre enthusiasts. Due the amount of time between releases and the relative critical slump Argento had been on at that point, one could argue The Mother of Tears was always destined to fail for not coming out when the demand for it was at its highest. The premise is certainly great. When a collection of ancient artifacts belonging to the "Mater Lachrymarum" is uncovered, Rome is cast into a hellish spiral of madness and brutality as the witch reclaims her missing items of power. Children are devoured, infants are thrown off bridges, people are strangled by demons with their own intestines, and ritualistic spears are shoved up women's vaginas. It's pretty freaking awesome! Unfortunately the enjoyment is bogged down by the dull plotting. The script gets points for being more intelligible than Inferno, but man is it far less interesting. It's a lot of watching characters have boring conversations meant to explain all the nonsense happening as the protagonist moves around between various sources of information before they're inevitably slaughtered. The acting in which is terrible across-the-board, with the most painful coming from Dario's own daughter Asia in the lead role. It constantly left me desperately awaiting the next sight of gore or nudity that makes Italian horror cinema so much fun. Also, where's the style? Its predecessors are known for their giallo use of color and music. Mother of Tears has none of that, coming off as rather drab in comparison. What it does have though are some unforgettable displays of savagery and skin. Showing that its legendary director's eye for violence and titillation we're still very much intact even is his sense of art and storytelling we're not. The regrettable lack of them though makes it hard to recommend this concluding chapter that came out way later than it should have after its creator's skills had begun to decline. I can't imagine having waited close to thirty years for THIS!