A once-great director's near-worst work passes through its funhouse plumbing and emerges from the crapper as intentional mischief: self-sabotage explained away as mad genius.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Washington Post by Ann Hornaday
This lurid celebration of shock, schlock and the shamelessly perverse finds the 67-year-old grandfather of torture porn scraping the bottom of his admittedly limited creative barrel.
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
The first two thirds are gangbusters, with marauding bands of tarted-up young witches who look only slightly less scary than Lindsay Lohan and her pals on an average night.
This hectic pileup of supernatural nonsense is a treasure trove of seemingly unintentional hilarity. Although lacking helmer's usual aesthetic panache, this "Mother" is a cheesy, breathless future camp classic.
New York Daily News by Joe Neumaier
At 67, maestro Argento's taste still runs toward bloody entrails and eye-gougings, but Asia's sexy sour-lemon smile is underused in his movies.
The New York Times by Nathan Lee
The Mother of Tears is silly, awkward, vulgar, outlandish, hysterical, inventive, revolting, flamboyant, titillating, ridiculous, mischievous, uproarious, cheap, priceless, tasteless and sublime.
The Hollywood Reporter by Richard James Havis
Witty to the point of hilarity, blood-soaked and thoroughly politically incorrect, Mother of Tears: The Third Mother follows 1970s cult classics "Suspiria" and "Inferno" to complete Argento's "Mother" trilogy.
Compared to a recent Argento dud like "The Stendhal Syndrome," Mother Of Tears at least has some of the go-for-broke gothic spirit of his earlier work. He's just lost the ability to shape it into something artful.
So unapologetically loopy and lush and ridiculous that I found it irresistible.
Philadelphia Inquirer by Steven Rea
A gloriously tacky horror movie with an inclination toward the occult, The Mother of Tears hails from the Italian schlockmeister Dario Argento, who photographs his Euro movie star daughter, Asia Argento, with something more than paternal pride.