I've just finished watching the late eighties Italian horror The Spider Labyrinth, which was a film devoid of cheese. This film, however, is like watching a slice of Gouda. But there's a place for films like this too, and I enjoyed it.
Some sort of sequel to Suspira/Inferno, it features some film makers getting together to make a film about Levanna, the Mother of Tears. Actress and new mother Ana is all set for the part, probably because her husband is the director, which makes script writer Dan's wife very jealous (and she's played by Caroline Munro, for the record).
Things start getting immediately weird when Ana starts having visions of a grape faced lady (you heard me) coming out of a mirror and attacking here. Seems that Levanna is real and wants to come back into our world, which involves Ana and her baby and that. You know the drill.
I though it was funny when Levanna started haunting Ana's fridge and then formed a vision of a fake repairman coming to fix it! That's just cruel. Also Bret Halsey's in this because perhaps Lucio Fulci had momentarily lost his phone number.
Anyway, the director guy and the screenwriter get in contact with some medium, who warns them off, and that's when Levanna goes nuts and starts wasting everybody, causing the medium's guts to explode out of her body, just like in Cozzi's Contamination! By this time there's also a little girl contacting Ana via a television to help her, but Levanna makes this TV explode and then spew up intestines (you heard me there too).
Things then start getting pretty unpredictable and VERY eighties, visually, but Cozzi may not be the best fan of reality, but he can sure pour on the madness and crazy set pieces. Whether or not this is a better sequel that Mother of Tears is up to you. Both are very cheesy and the later film was a lot gorier, but it also had Asia Argento in it and didn't really have the tone of Suspiria or Inferno, whereas this one is more similar in look and feel. That's up to you.
Luigi Cozzi sure had a thing for Caroline Munro, eh? In this film, you get to see her take a bath, wear lingerie, put varnish on her nails, have sex and get leggy while getting into a car. For the record, my favourite Munro moment is the musical number she does in Don't Open Til Christmas.
