Inferno

A sequel to Dario Argento’s amazing Suspiria!? And you're calling it Inferno?! Those are our favorite kinds of fires! How could this possibly go wrong!?

• Alleged second part of “trilogy” that started with Suspiria. = +50pts (A good movie.)
• Needing a knife to open a book. = +3pts (The way mom used to do it…)
• Passive aggressive diary read by someone who sounds a lot like Kahn from Stark Trek, and that over-explains the “concept” of the “Three Mothers.” (Wikipedia tells me the diary is referencing “witches,” but it sure sounds like he means “women.”) = +5pts (For the Kahn voice, not the misogyny.)
• What?! No Goblin?! = -5pts
• Lighting a movie in 1978 so that it looks like Miami in 1988. = +3pts
• A New York with no New Yorkers. = +10pts
• Why would an “alchemist” have written a book about houses of the damned instead of…I don’t know, maybe a book on alchemy? = -3pts
• Dialogue = Exposition = -5pts.
• Deflecting odor of obvious “witches’ den” by claiming proximity to a “cake factory.” = +8pts (Explains so much about Willy Wonka’s pad.)
• GODDMAN IT WE KNOW THAT THE SECOND KEY IS HIDDEN IN THE CELLAR!! GET OFF OUR SHIT ALREADY!! = -1pt
• Not explaining who your leading lady is, what she does, why she is where she is, or why she would attempt to find a hidden key to a witches’ den because of a random book she read. = -2pts
• Sticking your hand in a pool of dirty water you found in the basement of an abandoned building. = -3pts
• Deciding to simply dive into the above mentioned dirty water for a set of apartment keys to the building you’re already in.= +15pts (Beautifully shot, but so fucking nasty.)
• Creepy pretty cat lady in classical music class. = +3pts
• WHO THE FUCK ARE ANY OF THESE PEOPLE?? = 0PTS
• Telling the librarian in an ancient Roman library full of books that you are looking for an “old book.”=  -2pts
• Coming in through the front door and exiting through the basement for no reason whatsoever. = +7pts
• Where does this random basement door lead? An alchemy lab? Might as well go in and see what’s up, random new person whose name and presence in this film is still a mystery. = +3pts
• Giant apartment in Rome for woman claiming to be a “music student.” Riiight.= +3pts (Wink!)
• An actual exchange: “Have you heard of the Three Sisters?” “You mean those black singers?” = (In 1978, 0pts, In 2013, -10pts)
• Ah, Sarah. We hardly knew ye, or how ye scored that great apartment. = +5pts (But we have an idea…)
• Mark finally has a name! And apparently a different voice! = +10pts
• Interior design plan of black gloved killer: “So here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to stab this guy in the neck, you in the back, and then I’m going to install a drape wall here so that you can dramatically scratch your way through it when Mark shows up. It’ll be fabulous!” = +2pts
• “And then, that same night, I’ll magically appear in an abandoned New York city, show up at the building with the dirty pool, strategically drape some more curtains throughout the building—you know wherever the inspiration strikes—possibly adding some strobe lights and stuffed alligators, and then pipe in some classical music, while the chick from the beginning stumbles around her building (in which she is apparently the only tenant) until I eventually kill her with this really shitty guillotine. And when I say shitty guillotine, boy do I mean shitty guillotine! This thing couldn’t cut a grape! It’ll be totally scary and not the least bit nonsensical.” = +15pts
• Mark is back with yet another new voice! = +3pts
• Wait…Mark is back... = -25pts
• “Hmm, it looks like something violent and mysterious may have happened to my sister in her apartment… I’d better move in and hang-out. What?! Police-who?” = (If it results in Mark dying.  = +50pts, Anything less than that. = -75pts. To be determined.)
• Creepy butlers. = +1pt (“Yes, yes! You’re just creepy enough to be in charge of my personal safety! You’re hired!”) 
• Dialogue = 3rd refresh of repeated exposition = -15pts
• Death by cat bukkake!! = +25pts (Almost priceless.)
• If you want to survive this movie here’s a tip: Don’t ever repeat the “plot” as it was initially described in the first 10 minutes. Death is winning that battle 3-0. (No score. Just free advice.)
• Die, Mark. Please die. = -10pts
• Asshole bookshop owner bitches about getting scratched by a cat, while girl killed from cat bukkake remains eerily silent. = -5pts
• Creepy bookshop owner’s random burlap sack of cats he keeps in a trunk in his bookstore. = +5pts (+30pts if he throws said bag into a river.)
• Oh shit he’s gonna do it!.... (Points frozen until outcome determined.)
• Trying to drown back of cats in an inch of water. = +30pts for the attempt, -20pts for the follow-through. (That’s some weak sauce bookshop guy!) Net score = +10pts 
• Watching bookshop guy fall into river (irony!) and get eaten alive by rats. 0pts (It’s nasty, but it’s a wash due to mixed messages about cats from the filmmaker.)
• Conspicuously placed Hot Dog truck in shouting distance of screaming man being eaten by plague of rats emerging from the sewer. Do I even need to explain where this is going? = +30pts
• It’s hard to get scared, or feel sad for the deaths of characters you met literally 2 minutes ago. Especially while Mark is still alive. =  -5pts
• Watching a cat eat a live mouse. = -10pts (Barf!)
• That climactic Falco-esque song. = -3pts (This should have been a win, but it wasn’t.)
• Okay, it needs to be said: It looks like Mark doesn’t have a penis in those pants. (But we knew this already.) +5pts 
• Actual exchange: “I suppose you know who I am.” “Um…no, uh, I don’t.” From the mouth of babes. = +5pts
• “Quick this way!” Door opens. “Huh, this is quite the den of Mother of Darkness. We must run into it!” = (If Mark dies, +20pts, If Mark lives, -30pts. To be determined…)
• Mark lives. Goddamn it. = -25pts
• When your list of cast and characters consists of single-named characters or the jobs they performed in the movie, you probably don’t have a lot of meat on your story. = -10pts

Progressive Cinema Scorecard Total: -18pts

Pretty close to a zero rating. There not much to add. Literally, there is nothing to add to this movie that wasn’t covered by the scorecard. If it wasn’t for the nonsensical plot, lack of identifiable characters or motivations, and a bizarre love/hate relationship with cats  (so, essentially, if it was a completely different movie from the one that we actually watched, we guess), Inferno may have been a movie worth watching. If it were half as good as Suspiria, we’d all be winners in this scenario. As it stands, it is only a movie worth watching if you have a scorecard handy. And dogs.

Score Technician: Sean McConnell