Inferno

The middle film of the Three Mothers trilogy, less coherent than Suspiria and in places better looking.

There is a plot involving an alchemical book and three houses built for three witches, and Argento has no interest in it whatsoever. What he has is set pieces, and one of them is among the best things he ever shot: a woman lowers herself into a flooded ballroom under a New York apartment building, in blue light, and finds what is down there.

Mario Bava did the optical effects and matte work, uncredited, shortly before he died. His son Lamberto was assistant director. The film is the last thing the two generations worked on together.

Keith Emerson provides the score instead of Goblin and it is much stranger, veering into full choral bombast.

Listed by the DPP and dropped without prosecution. Passed uncut now.