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Inferno (1980 film)
Encyclopedia
Inferno is a 1980 Italian supernatural
horror film
written and directed by Dario Argento
. The film stars Irene Miracle
, Leigh McCloskey
, Eleonora Giorgi
, Daria Nicolodi
, and Alida Valli
. The cinematography
was by Romano Albani
, and Keith Emerson
composed the film's thunderous musical score
. The story concerns a young man's investigation into the disappearance of his sister, who had been living in a New York City apartment building that also served as a home for a powerful, centuries-old witch.
A thematic sequel
to Suspiria
(1977), the film is the second part of Argento's The Three Mothers Trilogy. The long-delayed concluding entry, The Mother of Tears, was released in 2007. All three films are partially derived from the concept of "Our Ladies of Sorrow" (Mater Lachrymarum, Mater Suspiriorum, and Mater Tenebrarum) originally devised by Thomas de Quincey
in his book Suspiria de Profundis (1845).
Unlike Suspiria, Inferno received a very limited theatrical release and the film was unable to match the box-office success of its predecessor. While the initial critical response to the film was mostly negative, its reputation has improved considerably over the years. Kim Newman
has called it "...perhaps the most underrated horror movie of the 1980’s.” In 2005, the magazine Total Film
named Inferno one of the 50 greatest horror films of all time.
, Freiburg
, and New York. Rose suspects that she is living in one of the buildings and writes to her brother Mark (McCloskey), a music student in Rome, urging him to visit her. Using clues provided in Varelli's book as a guide, Rose searches the cellar of her building and discovers a hole in the floor which leads to a water-filled ballroom. After accidentally dropping her keys into the water, she enters the flooded room. Swimming under the surface, she sees a portrait bearing the words "Mater Tenebrarum" and is able to reclaim the keys. A putrid corpse suddenly rises from the depths, frightening her. She escapes, although a shadowy figure watches her leave the basement.
In Rome, Mark attempts to read Rose's letter during class. He is distracted by the intense gaze of a beautiful student (Ania Pieroni
). When the class ends she leaves suddenly; Mark follows, leaving the letter behind. His friend Sara (Eleonora Giorgi
) picks up the letter, and eventually reads it. Horrified by the letter's contents, she takes a taxi to the Biblioteca Angelica and locates a copy of The Three Mothers. While looking for an exit, Sara is attacked by a monstrous figure who recognizes the book. She throws the book to the ground and escapes. Later that night, she seeks the company of a neighbor, Carlo (Gabriele Lavia
) and both are stabbed to death by a gloved killer. Mark discovers the bodies and two torn fragments from Rose's letter. After the police arrive, he walks out of Sara's apartment and sees a taxi slowly driving by. In the back seat of the vehicle is the music student, staring at him intently once again.
Mark telephones Rose but is unable to hear her clearly. He promises to visit just before the connection fails. Cut off, Rose sees two shadowy figures preparing to enter her apartment. She leaves through a back door, but is followed. In a decrepit room, she is grabbed from behind by a clawed assailant and brutally murdered.
Upon arriving in New York, Mark meets some of the residents of Rose's building, including a nurse (Veronica Lazar
) who is caring for the elderly Professor Arnold (Feodor Chaliapin, Jr.
), a wheelchair-bound mute. Mark learns from the sickly Countess Elise (Nicolodi) that Rose has disappeared. Elise explains how Rose had been acting strangely. After the two find blood on the carpet outside Rose's room, Mark follows the stains. He suddenly becomes ill and falls unconscious. Elise sees a black-robed figure dragging Mark away, but the figure suddenly stops and gives chase to Elise. She is attacked by dozens of cats, who bite and claw at her flesh. The hooded figure then stabs her to death. Mark staggers to the house's foyer where the nurse and caretaker (Valli) put him to bed.
The next day, Mark asks Kazanian (Sacha Pitoëff
), the antique dealer who sold Rose The Three Mothers, about Rose. However, the man provides no information. That night, Kazanian drowns several cats in a Central Park pond and accidentally falls into the water. Hundreds of rats from a nearby drain crawl all over him, gnawing his flesh. A hot dog vendor hears Kazanian's cries and rushes over. The man kills Kazanian with a knife.
Carol, the caretaker, discovers the horribly mutilated corpse of Elise's butler (Leopoldo Mastelloni) in the Countess' apartment. Shocked, she drops a lit candle which starts a fire. Attempting to put out the flames, she becomes entangled in burning draperies and falls from a window to her death. Meanwhile, Mark uses a clue from Rose's letter to discover that beneath each floor is a secret crawl space. He follows the hidden passages to a suite of rooms where he finds Professor Arnold. The old man reveals, via a mechanical voice generator, that he is in fact Varelli. He tries to kill Mark with a hypodermic injection. During the struggle, Varelli's neck becomes caught in his vocal apparatus, choking him. Mark frees him, only to be told by the dying man, "Even now you are being watched." Mark follows a shadowy figure watching him from the doorway to a lavishly furnished chamber, where he finds Varelli's nurse. Laughing maniacally, she explains to him with growing intensity that she is Mater Tenebrarum. She suddenly transforms into Death Personified
. However, the fire that has consumed much of the building enables Mark's escape from the witch's den. As the structural integrity of Tenebrarum's home fails, debris crashes down on the fiend, destroying her.
hit for 20th Century Fox
, released in the U.S. under their "International Classics" banner. Capitalizing on the commercial success of the film, Argento and Daria Nicolodi, who had co-written the screenplay, announced that Suspiria was only the first of a proposed trilogy, which they referred to as "The Three Mothers" trilogy. The basic concept of all three films is derived from Thomas de Quincey's Suspiria de Profundis, a sequel to his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
. A prose poem of the book entitled "Levana
and Our Ladies of Sorrow", details how, just as there are three Fates and three Graces, there are also three Sorrows: Mater Lachrymarum (The Lady of Tears), Mater Suspiriorum (The Lady of Sighs), and Mater Tenebrarum (The Lady of Darkness). As the title suggests, Suspiria focused on Mater Suspiriorum, and the evil sister featured in Inferno is Mater Tenebrarum. The concluding chapter of Argento's trilogy, The Mother of Tears (2007), is about Mater Lachrymarum.
When Argento proposed Inferno as his follow-up to Suspiria, Twentieth-Century Fox agreed to co-finance the production. The film was budgeted at US$
3,000,000, and producer Claudio Argento secured additional co-production money from Italian and German consortiums.
Nicolodi devised the original story concept, but received no on-screen credit for her work on the screenplay. Nicolodi explained that she did not seek credit because "having fought so hard to see my humble but excellent work in Suspiria recognized (up until a few days before the première I didn't know if I would see my name in the film credits), I didn't want to live through that again, so I said, 'Do as you please, in any case, the story will talk for me because I wrote it.'" Working from Nicolodi's original story notes, Argento wrote the screenplay while staying in a New York hotel room with a view of Central Park
.
, who was credited as the film's Production Coordinator, recalled:
During the film's production, Argento became stricken with a severe case of hepatitis
, and had to direct some sequences while lying on his back. At one point, the illness became so painful that he was bed-ridden for a few days; filming was then restricted to second unit
work, some of it done by Mario Bava. Argento has repeatedly called Inferno one of the least favorite of his films, as his memories of the movie are tainted by his recollection of the painful illness he suffered.
, Mario Bava
, to provide some of the optical effects
, matte painting
s, and trick shots for the film. Some of the cityscape views seen in Inferno were actually tabletop skyscrapers built by Bava out of milk cartons covered with photographs. The apartment building that Rose lived in was in fact only a partial set built in the studio—it was a few floors high and had to be visually augmented with a small sculpture constructed by Bava. This sculpture was set aflame toward the end of production and served as the burning building seen in the climax.
Bava also provided some second unit
direction for the production. Maitland McDonagh has suggested that Bava had his hand in the celebrated watery ballroom scene, but that sequence was shot in a water tank by Gianlorenzo Battaglia, without any optical effects work at all. Bava's son, Lamberto Bava
, was the film's assistant director
.
The film's fiery final sequence was shot without a stunt performer
filling in for Leigh McCloskey. After the production's principal photography had been completed, the film's producer, Claudio Argento, asked if McCloskey would be willing to perform the stunt
work himself, as the stuntman hired for the job had broken his leg. The producer assured the actor: "It'll be absolutely safe." The actor agreed, and when he walked onto the set the following day he observed "three rows of flexiglass in front of everything and everyone is wearing hard hat
s. I'm the only guy standing on the other side of this!...Needless to say, I did it all on instinct...I still feel that blast of the door blowing by me. When they tell you in words, its one thing, but when you feel that glass go flying past you with a sound like a Harrier jet, you never forget it!"
Dario Argento chose progressive rock
er Keith Emerson
to compose Infernos soundtrack because he "wanted a different sort of score [from that by Italian progressive group Goblin
on Suspiria], a more delicate one".
Argento prominently featured a selection from Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco
throughout Inferno, the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves ("Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate"), an operatic chestnut, from scene 2 of the opera's third act. In two instances, a recording of the Symphonic Orchestra and Chorus of Rome was used. Argento also tasked Emerson with including the piece in his soundtrack. He re-orchestrated "Va, pensiero..." in five-four time
to mimic a "fast and bumpy" taxi ride through Rome. When Argento reviewed Emerson's progress he did not initially recognize the remix, but was later pleased to discover it was used for Sara's taxi ride.
A soundtrack album
was originally released as an LP
by the Cinevox
label in 1981. In 2000, Cinevox released an expanded version of the album on CD
.
Emerson's music met with a mixed response from critics, some of whom compared it unfavorably to Goblin's score for Suspiria. Time Outs Scott Meek noted that "Argento's own over-the-top score [for Suspiria] has been replaced by religioso thunderings from the keyboards of Keith Emerson". A review of the 2000 Cinevox CD from Allmusic notes, "The keyboard
selections are rather unremarkable, except for the finale, "Cigarettes, Ice, Etc.," on which Emerson uses his full keyboard arsenal to excellent effect. Unfortunately, the choral segments sound rather pretentious and dated." In a review of the Anchor Bay
DVD, Michael Mackenzie of DVD Times opined, "The music is more or less adequate and at times adds to the tension, but it frequently contradicts what is happening on-screen, and is certainly nothing when compared to Goblin's soundtrack for Suspiria." While Guido Henkel of the DVD Review website wrote that Emerson's score was "a beautiful and impressive piece", he felt that "[t]he music is poorly spotted and too often cues are placed where they shouldn’t be, or placed so that they actually break tension rather than help building it."
. In an interview with Maitland McDonagh, Argento speculated that Fox's decision was made due to an abrupt change in management at the studio that left Inferno and several dozen other films in limbo as a result of them having been greenlighted by the previous management. The movie sat on the shelf for five years and was released straight to videotape
in 1985 via the studio’s Key Video subsidiary. The following year, it had a belated theatrical release by Fox, playing for a one week engagement in a New York City movie theatre. Worldwide, the film only had a very abbreviated and minimal theatrical release. Consequently, Inferno was not a commercial success.
Initial critical response was fairly muted. Several reviewers expressed disappointment, comparing the film unfavorably to the much more bombastic Suspiria. Scott Meek in Time Out said that of the two movies, Inferno was “…a much more conventional and unexciting piece of work…the meandering narrative confusions are amplified by weak performances.” In a review that was later reprinted in McDonagh's critically acclaimed Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento (1994), Variety
said Inferno was “A lavish, no-holds-barred witch story whose lack of both logic and technical skill are submerged in the sheer energy of the telling”, then complained that the film “fails mainly because it lacks restraint in setting up the terrifying moment, using close-ups and fancy camera angles gratuitously and with no relevance to the story.” Reviewing the film during its brief theatrical release in 1986, Nina Darnton of The New York Times
noted, "The movie's distinguishing feature is not the number or variety of horrible murders, but the length of time it takes for the victims to die. This is a technique that may have been borrowed from Italian opera
, but without the music, it loses some of its panache....The film...is shot in vivid colors, at some striking angles, and the background music is Verdi
rather than heavy metal
. But the script and acting are largely routine."
Inferno continues to have a mixed critical reputation. The film has a 56% favorable rating on the "Tomatometer" at Rotten Tomatoes
, out of ten surveyed internet film reviewers. But several critics have praised the film. Upon its initial release on videotape, Tim Lucas
in The Video Watchdog
Book said “The movie is terrific, much more exciting than most contemporary horror video releases…” Kim Newman, in The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural
, noted that Inferno was “…a dazzling series of set pieces designed to give the impression that the real world is terrifying, beautiful, erotic and dangerous…Inferno is a masterpiece of absolute film, and perhaps the most underrated horror movie of the 1980’s.” Nathaniel Thompson, reviewing the DVD
of the film on his Mondo Digital website, said it was "a dazzling, stylish feast loaded with some of Argento's strongest visual strokes of genius. Designed more or less as a sequel to Suspiria (which focused on Mater Suspiriorum, or the Mother of Sighs), Inferno is a more challenging and languid affair..."
Shane Dallmann noted on Images Journal that "Inferno is a film of sparse plot and indelible imagery...the combination of lighting, camerawork, design, decoration, and shock effects is indescribable in print but will not soon be forgotten by anyone who experiences it....Inferno functions on the level of a nightmare in all respects. Disturbing, unexplained images, such as a brief shot of a young woman hanging herself, occasionally punctuate the on-screen action, while the characters find themselves unable to react appropriately to the situations they encounter."
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
written and directed by Dario Argento
Dario Argento
Dario Argento is an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his work in the horror film genre, particularly in the subgenre known as giallo, and for his influence on modern horror and slasher movies....
. The film stars Irene Miracle
Irene Miracle
Irene Miracle is an American film and television actress and director.-Early life:Irene Miracle was born in Stillwater, Oklahoma and is of Scots-Irish, Russian, French and Osage descent.-Acting career:...
, Leigh McCloskey
Leigh McCloskey
Leigh Joseph McCloskey is an American film and television actor.-Career:McCloskey was classically trained as an actor at the Juilliard School in Lincoln Center, New York. As an actor, he is perhaps most widely known for his role as Mitch Cooper on the CBS soap opera Dallas...
, Eleonora Giorgi
Eleonora Giorgi
Eleonora Giorgi is an Italian actress, screenwriter and film director.Giorgi was born in Rome. She made her film debut in a minor role in Paolo Cavara's horror film Black Belly of the Tarantula . Giorgi has appeared in nearly fifty films, including Pasquale Festa Campanile's Conviene far bene...
, Daria Nicolodi
Daria Nicolodi
Daria Nicolodi is an Italian actress and screenwriter.- Early life and career :Daria Nicolodi was born in Florence on June 19, 1950. Her father was a Florentine lawyer and her mother, Fulvia, was a scholar of ancient languages. Her maternal grandfather was composer Alfredo Casella...
, and Alida Valli
Alida Valli
Alida Valli , sometimes simply credited as Valli, was an Italian actress who appeared in more than 100 films, including Mario Soldati's Piccolo mondo antico, Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case, Carol Reed's The Third Man, Michelangelo Antonioni's Il Grido, Luchino Visconti's Senso, Bernardo...
. The cinematography
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
was by Romano Albani
Romano Albani
Romano Albani is an Italian cinematographer and camera operator.His film credits include Marco Ferreri's La Dernière femme Romano Albani (born 25 September 1945 in Livorno, Tuscany, Italy) is an Italian cinematographer and camera operator.His film credits include Marco Ferreri's La Dernière...
, and Keith Emerson
Keith Emerson
Keith Noel Emerson is an English keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of the Keith Emerson Trio, John Brown's Bodies, The T-Bones, V.I.P.s, P.P. Arnold's backing band, and The Nice , he was a founder of Emerson, Lake & Palmer , one of the early supergroups, in 1970...
composed the film's thunderous musical score
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
. The story concerns a young man's investigation into the disappearance of his sister, who had been living in a New York City apartment building that also served as a home for a powerful, centuries-old witch.
A thematic sequel
Sequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
to Suspiria
Suspiria
Suspiria is a 1977 Italian horror film directed by Dario Argento and co-written by Argento and Daria Nicolodi. The film follows an American ballet student who transfers to a prestigious dance academy in Germany, only to discover that it is controlled by a coven of witches. The film's score was...
(1977), the film is the second part of Argento's The Three Mothers Trilogy. The long-delayed concluding entry, The Mother of Tears, was released in 2007. All three films are partially derived from the concept of "Our Ladies of Sorrow" (Mater Lachrymarum, Mater Suspiriorum, and Mater Tenebrarum) originally devised by Thomas de Quincey
Thomas de Quincey
Thomas Penson de Quincey was an English esssayist, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater .-Child and student:...
in his book Suspiria de Profundis (1845).
Unlike Suspiria, Inferno received a very limited theatrical release and the film was unable to match the box-office success of its predecessor. While the initial critical response to the film was mostly negative, its reputation has improved considerably over the years. Kim Newman
Kim Newman
Kim Newman is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternate fictional versions of history...
has called it "...perhaps the most underrated horror movie of the 1980’s.” In 2005, the magazine Total Film
Total Film
Total Film is a British film magazine published 13 times a year by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1997 and offers film, DVD and Blu-ray news, reviews and features...
named Inferno one of the 50 greatest horror films of all time.
Plot
Rose Elliot (Miracle), a poet living alone in New York City, discovers an ancient book called The Three Mothers. It tells of the existence of three evil sisters who rule the world with sorrow, tears, and darkness. The book, written by an architect named Varelli, reveals that the three dwell inside separate homes that had been specially designed and built for them by the architect in RomeRome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, Freiburg
Freiburg
Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the extreme south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain...
, and New York. Rose suspects that she is living in one of the buildings and writes to her brother Mark (McCloskey), a music student in Rome, urging him to visit her. Using clues provided in Varelli's book as a guide, Rose searches the cellar of her building and discovers a hole in the floor which leads to a water-filled ballroom. After accidentally dropping her keys into the water, she enters the flooded room. Swimming under the surface, she sees a portrait bearing the words "Mater Tenebrarum" and is able to reclaim the keys. A putrid corpse suddenly rises from the depths, frightening her. She escapes, although a shadowy figure watches her leave the basement.
In Rome, Mark attempts to read Rose's letter during class. He is distracted by the intense gaze of a beautiful student (Ania Pieroni
Ania Pieroni
Ania Pieroni is an Italian actress from the late 1970s and early 1980s.- Early life :Ania Pieroni was born in 1957 in Rome to a middle-class family. Her paternal grandfather was the mayor of Pescara, while her maternal grandfather was a German architect. Her father was a Knight of Malta, a pilot...
). When the class ends she leaves suddenly; Mark follows, leaving the letter behind. His friend Sara (Eleonora Giorgi
Eleonora Giorgi
Eleonora Giorgi is an Italian actress, screenwriter and film director.Giorgi was born in Rome. She made her film debut in a minor role in Paolo Cavara's horror film Black Belly of the Tarantula . Giorgi has appeared in nearly fifty films, including Pasquale Festa Campanile's Conviene far bene...
) picks up the letter, and eventually reads it. Horrified by the letter's contents, she takes a taxi to the Biblioteca Angelica and locates a copy of The Three Mothers. While looking for an exit, Sara is attacked by a monstrous figure who recognizes the book. She throws the book to the ground and escapes. Later that night, she seeks the company of a neighbor, Carlo (Gabriele Lavia
Gabriele Lavia
Gabriele Lavia is an Italian actor, film director and theatre director.Lavia was born in Milan, Lombardy. Since 1970 he has had roles in nearly thirty films and television programs...
) and both are stabbed to death by a gloved killer. Mark discovers the bodies and two torn fragments from Rose's letter. After the police arrive, he walks out of Sara's apartment and sees a taxi slowly driving by. In the back seat of the vehicle is the music student, staring at him intently once again.
Mark telephones Rose but is unable to hear her clearly. He promises to visit just before the connection fails. Cut off, Rose sees two shadowy figures preparing to enter her apartment. She leaves through a back door, but is followed. In a decrepit room, she is grabbed from behind by a clawed assailant and brutally murdered.
Veronica Lazar
Veronica Lazar is an Italian actress.She made her debut in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris , and also appeared in some of the director's subsequent films, La Luna , The Sheltering Sky , and Besieged . Lazar is probably best known for her role as the demonic Mater Tenebrarum in Dario...
) who is caring for the elderly Professor Arnold (Feodor Chaliapin, Jr.
Feodor Chaliapin, Jr.
Feodor Chaliapin, Jr. was the son and namesake of operatic bass Feodor Chaliapin. He was born in Moscow, Russia, and had a distinguished career in acting throughout Europe, mainly in Italy. His mother was Iola Tornagi, a noted ballerina who quit ballet and acting to take care of Feodor and his...
), a wheelchair-bound mute. Mark learns from the sickly Countess Elise (Nicolodi) that Rose has disappeared. Elise explains how Rose had been acting strangely. After the two find blood on the carpet outside Rose's room, Mark follows the stains. He suddenly becomes ill and falls unconscious. Elise sees a black-robed figure dragging Mark away, but the figure suddenly stops and gives chase to Elise. She is attacked by dozens of cats, who bite and claw at her flesh. The hooded figure then stabs her to death. Mark staggers to the house's foyer where the nurse and caretaker (Valli) put him to bed.
The next day, Mark asks Kazanian (Sacha Pitoëff
Sacha Pitoëff
Sacha Pitoëff was a French film actor and theater director.Born in Geneva, Switzerland, Pitoëff played his first film role in 1952. Appearing in over 50 movies, he is probably best known for his performance in Alain Resnais' enigmatic Last Year at Marienbad , as a character known simply as "M"...
), the antique dealer who sold Rose The Three Mothers, about Rose. However, the man provides no information. That night, Kazanian drowns several cats in a Central Park pond and accidentally falls into the water. Hundreds of rats from a nearby drain crawl all over him, gnawing his flesh. A hot dog vendor hears Kazanian's cries and rushes over. The man kills Kazanian with a knife.
Carol, the caretaker, discovers the horribly mutilated corpse of Elise's butler (Leopoldo Mastelloni) in the Countess' apartment. Shocked, she drops a lit candle which starts a fire. Attempting to put out the flames, she becomes entangled in burning draperies and falls from a window to her death. Meanwhile, Mark uses a clue from Rose's letter to discover that beneath each floor is a secret crawl space. He follows the hidden passages to a suite of rooms where he finds Professor Arnold. The old man reveals, via a mechanical voice generator, that he is in fact Varelli. He tries to kill Mark with a hypodermic injection. During the struggle, Varelli's neck becomes caught in his vocal apparatus, choking him. Mark frees him, only to be told by the dying man, "Even now you are being watched." Mark follows a shadowy figure watching him from the doorway to a lavishly furnished chamber, where he finds Varelli's nurse. Laughing maniacally, she explains to him with growing intensity that she is Mater Tenebrarum. She suddenly transforms into Death Personified
Death (personification)
The concept of death as a sentient entity has existed in many societies since the beginning of history. In English, Death is often given the name Grim Reaper and, from the 15th century onwards, came to be shown as a skeletal figure carrying a large scythe and clothed in a black cloak with a hood...
. However, the fire that has consumed much of the building enables Mark's escape from the witch's den. As the structural integrity of Tenebrarum's home fails, debris crashes down on the fiend, destroying her.
Cast
- Irene MiracleIrene MiracleIrene Miracle is an American film and television actress and director.-Early life:Irene Miracle was born in Stillwater, Oklahoma and is of Scots-Irish, Russian, French and Osage descent.-Acting career:...
as Rose Elliott - Leigh McCloskeyLeigh McCloskeyLeigh Joseph McCloskey is an American film and television actor.-Career:McCloskey was classically trained as an actor at the Juilliard School in Lincoln Center, New York. As an actor, he is perhaps most widely known for his role as Mitch Cooper on the CBS soap opera Dallas...
as Mark Elliott - Eleonora GiorgiEleonora GiorgiEleonora Giorgi is an Italian actress, screenwriter and film director.Giorgi was born in Rome. She made her film debut in a minor role in Paolo Cavara's horror film Black Belly of the Tarantula . Giorgi has appeared in nearly fifty films, including Pasquale Festa Campanile's Conviene far bene...
as Sara - Daria NicolodiDaria NicolodiDaria Nicolodi is an Italian actress and screenwriter.- Early life and career :Daria Nicolodi was born in Florence on June 19, 1950. Her father was a Florentine lawyer and her mother, Fulvia, was a scholar of ancient languages. Her maternal grandfather was composer Alfredo Casella...
as Elise Stallone Van Adler - Sacha PitoëffSacha PitoëffSacha Pitoëff was a French film actor and theater director.Born in Geneva, Switzerland, Pitoëff played his first film role in 1952. Appearing in over 50 movies, he is probably best known for his performance in Alain Resnais' enigmatic Last Year at Marienbad , as a character known simply as "M"...
as Kazanian - Alida ValliAlida ValliAlida Valli , sometimes simply credited as Valli, was an Italian actress who appeared in more than 100 films, including Mario Soldati's Piccolo mondo antico, Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case, Carol Reed's The Third Man, Michelangelo Antonioni's Il Grido, Luchino Visconti's Senso, Bernardo...
as Carol, the caretaker - Veronica LazarVeronica LazarVeronica Lazar is an Italian actress.She made her debut in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris , and also appeared in some of the director's subsequent films, La Luna , The Sheltering Sky , and Besieged . Lazar is probably best known for her role as the demonic Mater Tenebrarum in Dario...
as The Nurse - Gabriele LaviaGabriele LaviaGabriele Lavia is an Italian actor, film director and theatre director.Lavia was born in Milan, Lombardy. Since 1970 he has had roles in nearly thirty films and television programs...
as Carlo - Feodor Chaliapin, Jr.Feodor Chaliapin, Jr.Feodor Chaliapin, Jr. was the son and namesake of operatic bass Feodor Chaliapin. He was born in Moscow, Russia, and had a distinguished career in acting throughout Europe, mainly in Italy. His mother was Iola Tornagi, a noted ballerina who quit ballet and acting to take care of Feodor and his...
as Prof. Arnold/Dr. Varelli
- Leopoldo Mastelloni as John, the butler
- Ania PieroniAnia PieroniAnia Pieroni is an Italian actress from the late 1970s and early 1980s.- Early life :Ania Pieroni was born in 1957 in Rome to a middle-class family. Her paternal grandfather was the mayor of Pescara, while her maternal grandfather was a German architect. Her father was a Knight of Malta, a pilot...
as The music student - James Fleetwood as Cook
- Rosario Rigutini as Man
- Ryan Hilliard as Shadow
- Paolo Paoloni as Music teacher
- Fulvio Mingozzi as Taxi driver
- Luigi Lodoli as Bookbinder
- Rodolfo Lodi as Old man
Production
In 1977, Suspiria had been an unexpectedly big box officeBox office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
hit for 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, released in the U.S. under their "International Classics" banner. Capitalizing on the commercial success of the film, Argento and Daria Nicolodi, who had co-written the screenplay, announced that Suspiria was only the first of a proposed trilogy, which they referred to as "The Three Mothers" trilogy. The basic concept of all three films is derived from Thomas de Quincey's Suspiria de Profundis, a sequel to his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is an autobiographical account written by Thomas De Quincey, about his laudanum addiction and its effect on his life...
. A prose poem of the book entitled "Levana
Levana
In ancient Roman religion, Levana was the goddess of newborn babies. Her name comes from the practice of the father lifting the child off the ground where it was placed by the child's mother to show that he officially accepts the child as his own.Thomas de Quincey's prose poem Levana and Our...
and Our Ladies of Sorrow", details how, just as there are three Fates and three Graces, there are also three Sorrows: Mater Lachrymarum (The Lady of Tears), Mater Suspiriorum (The Lady of Sighs), and Mater Tenebrarum (The Lady of Darkness). As the title suggests, Suspiria focused on Mater Suspiriorum, and the evil sister featured in Inferno is Mater Tenebrarum. The concluding chapter of Argento's trilogy, The Mother of Tears (2007), is about Mater Lachrymarum.
When Argento proposed Inferno as his follow-up to Suspiria, Twentieth-Century Fox agreed to co-finance the production. The film was budgeted at US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
3,000,000, and producer Claudio Argento secured additional co-production money from Italian and German consortiums.
Nicolodi devised the original story concept, but received no on-screen credit for her work on the screenplay. Nicolodi explained that she did not seek credit because "having fought so hard to see my humble but excellent work in Suspiria recognized (up until a few days before the première I didn't know if I would see my name in the film credits), I didn't want to live through that again, so I said, 'Do as you please, in any case, the story will talk for me because I wrote it.'" Working from Nicolodi's original story notes, Argento wrote the screenplay while staying in a New York hotel room with a view of Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
.
Filming
The filming of Inferno took place mainly on interior studio sets in Rome but a short amount of time was also set aside for location shooting in New York, including Central Park. Sacha Pitoëff's death scene was filmed on location in Central Park during the summer of 1979. William LustigWilliam Lustig
William Lustig , also known as Bill Lustig, is an American film director and producer who has worked primarily in the horror film genre.-Movie career:...
, who was credited as the film's Production Coordinator, recalled:
During the film's production, Argento became stricken with a severe case of hepatitis
Hepatitis
Hepatitis is a medical condition defined by the inflammation of the liver and characterized by the presence of inflammatory cells in the tissue of the organ. The name is from the Greek hepar , the root being hepat- , meaning liver, and suffix -itis, meaning "inflammation"...
, and had to direct some sequences while lying on his back. At one point, the illness became so painful that he was bed-ridden for a few days; filming was then restricted to second unit
Second unit
In film, the second unit is a team that shoots subsidiary footage for a motion picture. Its work is distinct from that of the first unit, which shoots all scenes involving principal actors...
work, some of it done by Mario Bava. Argento has repeatedly called Inferno one of the least favorite of his films, as his memories of the movie are tainted by his recollection of the painful illness he suffered.
Design and effects
Argento invited his mentorMentor
In Greek mythology, Mentor was the son of Alcimus or Anchialus. In his old age Mentor was a friend of Odysseus who placed Mentor and Odysseus' foster-brother Eumaeus in charge of his son Telemachus, and of Odysseus' palace, when Odysseus left for the Trojan War.When Athena visited Telemachus she...
, Mario Bava
Mario Bava
Mario Bava was an Italian director, screenwriter, and cinematographer remembered as one of the greatest names from the "golden age" of Italian horror films.-Biography:Mario Bava was born in San Remo, Liguria, Italy...
, to provide some of the optical effects
Compositing
Compositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. Live-action shooting for compositing is variously called "chroma key", "blue screen", "green screen" and other names. Today,...
, matte painting
Matte painting
A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that would otherwise be too expensive or impossible to build or visit. Historically, matte painters and film technicians have used various techniques...
s, and trick shots for the film. Some of the cityscape views seen in Inferno were actually tabletop skyscrapers built by Bava out of milk cartons covered with photographs. The apartment building that Rose lived in was in fact only a partial set built in the studio—it was a few floors high and had to be visually augmented with a small sculpture constructed by Bava. This sculpture was set aflame toward the end of production and served as the burning building seen in the climax.
Bava also provided some second unit
Second unit
In film, the second unit is a team that shoots subsidiary footage for a motion picture. Its work is distinct from that of the first unit, which shoots all scenes involving principal actors...
direction for the production. Maitland McDonagh has suggested that Bava had his hand in the celebrated watery ballroom scene, but that sequence was shot in a water tank by Gianlorenzo Battaglia, without any optical effects work at all. Bava's son, Lamberto Bava
Lamberto Bava
Lamberto Bava is an Italian film director, specializing in horror and fantasy films.Bava was born in Rome, Italy, the son of cinematographer/director Mario Bava, and grandson of cameraman Eugenio Bava...
, was the film's assistant director
Assistant director
The role of an Assistant director include tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, maintaining order on the set. They also have to take care of health and safety of the crew...
.
The film's fiery final sequence was shot without a stunt performer
Stunt performer
A stuntman, or daredevil is someone who performs dangerous stunts, often as a career.These stunts are sometimes rigged so that they look dangerous while still having safety mechanisms, but often they are as dangerous as they appear to be...
filling in for Leigh McCloskey. After the production's principal photography had been completed, the film's producer, Claudio Argento, asked if McCloskey would be willing to perform the stunt
Stunt
A stunt is an unusual and difficult physical feat, or any act requiring a special skill, performed for artistic purposes in TV, theatre, or cinema...
work himself, as the stuntman hired for the job had broken his leg. The producer assured the actor: "It'll be absolutely safe." The actor agreed, and when he walked onto the set the following day he observed "three rows of flexiglass in front of everything and everyone is wearing hard hat
Hard hat
A hard hat is a type of helmet predominantly used in workplace environments, such as construction sites, to protect the head from injury by falling objects, impact with other objects, debris, bad weather and electric shock. Inside the helmet is a suspension that spreads the helmet's weight over the...
s. I'm the only guy standing on the other side of this!...Needless to say, I did it all on instinct...I still feel that blast of the door blowing by me. When they tell you in words, its one thing, but when you feel that glass go flying past you with a sound like a Harrier jet, you never forget it!"
Music
Dario Argento chose progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
er Keith Emerson
Keith Emerson
Keith Noel Emerson is an English keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of the Keith Emerson Trio, John Brown's Bodies, The T-Bones, V.I.P.s, P.P. Arnold's backing band, and The Nice , he was a founder of Emerson, Lake & Palmer , one of the early supergroups, in 1970...
to compose Infernos soundtrack because he "wanted a different sort of score [from that by Italian progressive group Goblin
Goblin (band)
Goblin are an Italian progressive rock band known for their soundtracks for Dario Argento films ....
on Suspiria], a more delicate one".
Argento prominently featured a selection from Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco
Nabucco
Nabucco is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the Biblical story and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue...
throughout Inferno, the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves ("Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate"), an operatic chestnut, from scene 2 of the opera's third act. In two instances, a recording of the Symphonic Orchestra and Chorus of Rome was used. Argento also tasked Emerson with including the piece in his soundtrack. He re-orchestrated "Va, pensiero..." in five-four time
Time signature
The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....
to mimic a "fast and bumpy" taxi ride through Rome. When Argento reviewed Emerson's progress he did not initially recognize the remix, but was later pleased to discover it was used for Sara's taxi ride.
A soundtrack album
Soundtrack album
A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television program. In some cases, not all the tracks from the movie are included in the album; however there are rare cases of songs in the trailers that do not appear in...
was originally released as an LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
by the Cinevox
Cinevox
Cinevox is an Italian record label specializing in the release of motion picture soundtrack albums. Founded in 1966, the label has released more than 200 titles, including numerous works by Ennio Morricone, Pino Donaggio, and various Dario Argento movie soundtracks composed by Goblin and Keith...
label in 1981. In 2000, Cinevox released an expanded version of the album on CD
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
.
Emerson's music met with a mixed response from critics, some of whom compared it unfavorably to Goblin's score for Suspiria. Time Outs Scott Meek noted that "Argento's own over-the-top score [for Suspiria] has been replaced by religioso thunderings from the keyboards of Keith Emerson". A review of the 2000 Cinevox CD from Allmusic notes, "The keyboard
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
selections are rather unremarkable, except for the finale, "Cigarettes, Ice, Etc.," on which Emerson uses his full keyboard arsenal to excellent effect. Unfortunately, the choral segments sound rather pretentious and dated." In a review of the Anchor Bay
Anchor Bay Entertainment
Anchor Bay Entertainment is a U.S. based home entertainment and production company and is a division of Starz Media, which is a unit of Starz, LLC. It was previously owned by IDT Entertainment until 2006 when IDT was purchased by Starz Media. Anchor Bay markets and sells feature films, series,...
DVD, Michael Mackenzie of DVD Times opined, "The music is more or less adequate and at times adds to the tension, but it frequently contradicts what is happening on-screen, and is certainly nothing when compared to Goblin's soundtrack for Suspiria." While Guido Henkel of the DVD Review website wrote that Emerson's score was "a beautiful and impressive piece", he felt that "[t]he music is poorly spotted and too often cues are placed where they shouldn’t be, or placed so that they actually break tension rather than help building it."
Reception
For reasons never specified, Fox did not commit to a wide theatrical release of Inferno in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. In an interview with Maitland McDonagh, Argento speculated that Fox's decision was made due to an abrupt change in management at the studio that left Inferno and several dozen other films in limbo as a result of them having been greenlighted by the previous management. The movie sat on the shelf for five years and was released straight to videotape
Videotape
A videotape is a recording of images and sounds on to magnetic tape as opposed to film stock or random access digital media. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram...
in 1985 via the studio’s Key Video subsidiary. The following year, it had a belated theatrical release by Fox, playing for a one week engagement in a New York City movie theatre. Worldwide, the film only had a very abbreviated and minimal theatrical release. Consequently, Inferno was not a commercial success.
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
said Inferno was “A lavish, no-holds-barred witch story whose lack of both logic and technical skill are submerged in the sheer energy of the telling”, then complained that the film “fails mainly because it lacks restraint in setting up the terrifying moment, using close-ups and fancy camera angles gratuitously and with no relevance to the story.” Reviewing the film during its brief theatrical release in 1986, Nina Darnton of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
noted, "The movie's distinguishing feature is not the number or variety of horrible murders, but the length of time it takes for the victims to die. This is a technique that may have been borrowed from Italian opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
, but without the music, it loses some of its panache....The film...is shot in vivid colors, at some striking angles, and the background music is Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
rather than heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
. But the script and acting are largely routine."
Inferno continues to have a mixed critical reputation. The film has a 56% favorable rating on the "Tomatometer" at Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, out of ten surveyed internet film reviewers. But several critics have praised the film. Upon its initial release on videotape, Tim Lucas
Tim Lucas
Tim Lucas is a film critic, biographer, novelist, screenwriter, blogger, and publisher/editor of the video review magazine Video Watchdog.-Biography and early career:...
in The Video Watchdog
Video Watchdog
Video Watchdog is a bimonthly, digest size film magazine started in 1990 by publisher/editor Tim Lucas and his wife, art director and co-publisher Donna Lucas....
Book said “The movie is terrific, much more exciting than most contemporary horror video releases…” Kim Newman, in The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural
The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural
The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural is a reference work on horror fiction in the arts, edited by Jack Sullivan. The book was published in 1986 by Viking Press....
, noted that Inferno was “…a dazzling series of set pieces designed to give the impression that the real world is terrifying, beautiful, erotic and dangerous…Inferno is a masterpiece of absolute film, and perhaps the most underrated horror movie of the 1980’s.” Nathaniel Thompson, reviewing the DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
of the film on his Mondo Digital website, said it was "a dazzling, stylish feast loaded with some of Argento's strongest visual strokes of genius. Designed more or less as a sequel to Suspiria (which focused on Mater Suspiriorum, or the Mother of Sighs), Inferno is a more challenging and languid affair..."
Shane Dallmann noted on Images Journal that "Inferno is a film of sparse plot and indelible imagery...the combination of lighting, camerawork, design, decoration, and shock effects is indescribable in print but will not soon be forgotten by anyone who experiences it....Inferno functions on the level of a nightmare in all respects. Disturbing, unexplained images, such as a brief shot of a young woman hanging herself, occasionally punctuate the on-screen action, while the characters find themselves unable to react appropriately to the situations they encounter."