Plot

Lucie, a year-old child who has been missing, is discovered hurt and upset running along a road. Doctors discover she has been imprisoned and tormented physically and psychologically, but there is no evidence of sexual assault when she arrives at the hospital. The reason for her disappearance is still unknown. The police question another little girl who is a visitor at the institution where the protagonist has been placed, Anna, who has since become friends with Lucie, in an attempt to shed light on Lucie's abduction, but Anna claims that Lucie is not telling them what she has been through and hopes that her tormentors will be apprehended. Lucie, meantime, is plagued by images of a horrible lady who continues to attack her.

Lucie, now an adult, breaks into a house and murders a family (father, mother, and two children), after which she calls Anna and tells her that she has finally found the people who tortured her years before. Anna returns to the scene and attempts to conceal the bodies, but discovers that the mother (the slain family's mother) is still alive and tries to save her. Lucie recognizes her and kills her with a hammer.

Afterward, Lucy, a victim of her own guilt, commits suicide and Anna suffers an even worse fate... but I won't spoil any more details, so I suggest you watch it!!!

Why you should watch it?

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This is one of the best horror movies ever from the visual point of view, with an almost total absence of dialogue that makes the atmosphere even more disturbing.

The film tries to be extremely disturbing, and unlike other films of the same genre, it succeeds in full, as it manages to make the viewer uncomfortable with very strong and crude images, unimaginable torture, for a sane mind (so much so that its premiere at the cinema has made many viewers faint!!!), and, as mentioned before, the almost absence of dialogue.

The second part of the film becomes very special because it is composed mostly of scenes divided by a black screen (lasting a few seconds), which are interspersed with the various tortures to which the protagonists are subjected.

Some of the scenes are almost meaningless at first glance but take on meaning later in the film, leaving the viewer dumbfounded as soon as he realizes what really happened (especially the scene in which Lucy and later Anne refuse food for apparently no reason).

The film has some elements that seem paranormal (there is a character at the beginning who looks like some sort of witch from a Gore Verbinski movie) but then it turns out to be only the fruit of the protagonist's sick mind.

Some of the scenes in the film are from a mental asylum, I struggle to think how a human mind can even think of such things. If in my life I meet someone who does not find this film disturbing, then I can be sure that I will have in front of me a lunatic!!!
Just to give you some examples:

• one of the victims is tortured with a metal plate attached to her head by nails, which are then removed by Anne who finds her in the basement in an attempt to help her, but this causes an unexpected reaction from the victim who first cuts her own arm off with a knife and then commits suicide;

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• all the victims, who are already in a pitiful condition, are repeatedly beaten by their tormentors with kicks and punches, making the scenes difficult to bear;
• the peak is deliberately reached with the integral squelching of a victim;

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Conclusion

The film may appear very random at first glance since it is mostly made up of torture scenes with no apparent explanation until it becomes clearer what are the aims and motivations of this "Masonic sect", which want to reach a state of ecstasy through absolute pain, to be able to understand, while alive, the true meaning of death.
This very heavy truth once revealed to the leader of this sect proves to be too heavy to assimilate, leading to his suicide.

From a philosophical point of view, the film manages to make it clear that the understanding of death is not within man's reach, but rather it turns out to be something too complicated to manage.

Rating

My personal vote, comparing it with other horror movies (and so not on a scale that takes into account also other movie genres), is:

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7.5/10

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