Inferno Blu-Ray Review

31st Jul 2013

The successor to Suspiria in what became the second part of the Three Mothers trilogy. Visually stimulating, the tale takes witchcraft to the next level with the inclusion of alchemy. The narrative takes place largely in New York where the second of the three mothers dwells.

What is different from Suspiria is the fact that the film fails to find a leading part until way into the film. Every time we are introduced to a young beautiful woman who uncovers deadly secrets we are treated to their visually and bloodily glorious demise. Whilst the surprise of not knowing who is going to live and die is refreshing, it does get frustrating not having a solid figure to follow through to the climax, save for one male character who is so ineffectual at the climax you wonder what the hell just happened. But then this is Dario Argento and script details are not his primary concern. Ideas, uncomfortable death scenes and visual flare though are, and he succeeds beyond expectation.

On the first disc there is the new and uncut version of the film itself. An introduction by actress Daria Nicolodi; there is also a 20 minute interview with her on her involvement with Argento’s films; a host of interviews with the actors and composer as well as a look at The Black Cat (Luigi Cozzi’s unofficial sequel to Inferno).

Disc two includes an hour long documentary narrated by Mark Kermode that covers Argento’s career. There are many key players that have been interviewed here, but you still get the feeling that to really do justice to Argento’s work you’d need to spend at least a few hours on the material, but as a beginners guide it works well enough.

There are also short interviews with Dario Argento and Lamberto Bava who look back at the film. There is also a trailer gallery with 18 trailers of almost all of his works, which is fun. It’s always interesting to see how older trailers for films stand up or fall down.

The one and only complaint is that there is no commentary – which this review does lose a star on as this is such an important part of the Argento cannon that is begs belief why one was not comissioned. With Suspiria (released by a different distributor) we got a fantastic commentary by UK horror critics and writers Alan Jones and Kim Newman – who have since also contributed work to other releases from Arror (including Tenabrae). It would have been invaluable to have had their audio input here as well, but Jones has contributed a small booklet that comes with the set.