It can hardly be denied that Italian horror film director Dario Argento is a true master craftsman. His films are often visually arresting, with many strange and horrific sounds, imagery, and bizarre set decorations that really succeed in creating atmospheres of pure dread, evil, and terror. His "giallo" (the Italian word for "yellow") murder-mystery films are what are most-known around the world to horror fans, because they combine the typical whodunit with elements of horror and the supernatural; the best film of this genre that I've seen so far is Argento's "Suspiria" (1977), though I have yet to see the other highly regarded picture from this time, "Deep Red" (1975).

Argento's 1980 feature "Inferno" is a semi-sequel to his earlier "Suspiria"; "Inferno" is the second in a loose film trilogy known as the "Three Mothers," which began with "Suspiria," followed by "Inferno," and was concluded in 2007 with the long-delayed "The Mother of Tears." This loose trilogy surrounds the legend of three ancient witches living in the present-day - one in Germany ("Suspiria"), another in New York City (this film), and the third finally in Rome ("The Mother of Tears"). "Inferno," while visually arresting with astounding production values and horrific blood-lettings, is a mixed bag with little coherence in the plot.

I did not find Argento's earlier "Suspiria" to be a particularly well-acted or well-written film. Argento is largely a director of style over substance, but his style is usually the star of the show in most of his films, hence why actors and plot often seem secondary. What made that film so horrifying was its sounds, imagery, and soundtrack (by the Italian band Goblin). It was such a uniquely unsettling horror film experience that it terrified me to the bone when I watched it for the first time.

"Inferno" is alternatively set in Rome and New York City. Rose Elliot (Irene Miracle) discovers the book "The Three Mothers" in New York City and comes to suspect that she is living in one of the buildings believed to house one of the Three Mothers. She writes to her brother Mark (Leigh McCloskey) in Rome for him to come visit her. This sets in motion a series of events that plunges them into a horrifying world of murder and the supernatural as they try to uncover the truth about the Three Mothers.

A lot of events in "Inferno" seem random and off-putting and seem to interfere with the narrative with little in the plot connecting any of the events. For example, the beautiful Italian girl (Ania Pieroni) who shows up at different points while Mark is in Rome; she never speaks, he never speaks to her, and we know nothing about her. But she provides an interesting visual element in an otherwise dark and disturbing picture.

"Inferno" is incredibly well-made, but like I said even incoherence in the plot has its limits. "Suspiria" didn't have much of a coherent story, but Argento's style and use of secondary background elements (sound, imagery, music) were able to make you "experience" the picture in ways that were more than enough to make up for the picture's shortcomings. "Inferno" does have some neat camera and visual trickery that plunge you into the madness so that you feel like you're actually there experiencing everything the characters are witnessing.

There are also some creatively gruesome murders here and there (a disturbing factoid here is that Argento himself often likes to portray the hands of the killer in his films). There's even a disturbing sequence involving a crippled old man, cats and rats that is pretty extraordinary and has to be seen to be truly believed, even if it does seem a bit random. And there's another sequence involving Rose in an underwater moat that is just downright chilling.

"Inferno" is not as "hot" as I thought it was going to be. In fact, I thought it was a little cold for my liking, considering my experience with "Suspiria." Maybe it'll get better (and "hotter") on repeat viewings.

6/10

When Dario Argento calls "Inferno" a difficult movie, he ain't kidding. It's a feast for the eyes that's easily on par with his most acclaimed work, but also a narrative train wreck loaded with nonsense. I'd have less of a problem accepting the free-association nightmare logic of the film if Argento didn't feebly try to make it coherent (in the works of David Lynch/Cronenberg, things are far more intriguing the less they're explained). It also doesn't help that all of the characters are so thinly-defined they barely exist, and that our American lead (Leigh McCloskey) spends the film looking as confused as most viewers will be. "Inferno" is the second part of a trilogy begun by 1977's "Suspiria" (and concluded by this year's "Mother of Tears"), and in some aspects, Argento seems to be mimicking the visual (lots and lots of blue-to-red lighting schemes) and musical (Goblin is replaced by Keith Emerson) cues that made that film so successful. And while "Inferno" is punctuated by many wonderfully surreal and ambiguous setpieces (a chase through a library; a rodent feeding frenzy during a lunar eclipse; a search for keys in a submerged catacomb), the film lacks the efficiency and flow of Argento's best films, instead taking a more contemplative approach to the mythos of "The Three Mothers." While these elements make for an interesting view, the lack of a relatable human anchor ultimately keeps "Inferno" from achieving greatness.