When I saw the movie poster and then the teaser for the Italian Netflix horror movie, a classic horror story, I was intrigued and a little excited. This is the story of five strangers traveling in southern Italy become stranded in the woods where they must fight desperately to get out alive.
I'm not sure if this is a normal thing, but for this movie, a group of strangers is sharing an RV to get to their destination. They're picked up by the driver and it seems a bit like one of those group Uber situations. So they drive along and traverse through the mountains on the way to the respective destinations with some that are going to a wedding.
Some are on their way home and then others are just on their way to visit family. An accident occurs and they find themselves stranded when odd and disturbing things begin to happen. The atmosphere is creepy with the dark woods, a foreboding cabin in the middle of the forest and a strange dark red lighting with sirens sounding in the distance.
The camera angles are also used effectively in setting up feelings of just unease and discomfort. And there are some cool shots also that at times make us more than voyeurs and turn us into participants.
So as I watch this, I got so many vibes from different horror movies. There are elements from Wrong Turn, The Ritual, some of Funny Games, bits of You're Next and Frontiers and even Midsommar. And there might even be slight feels of The Wicker Man and a scene from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
The setup for this is good. And even though I was pretty certain of what the scenario was going to be, the film still produced a surprise with a scene change. There's also quite a bit of squirm inducing gore. Body stuff always tweaks me out.
And this contains some that just made me wince. And I liked where this film was trying to go. But unfortunately, there are so many things that work against it. For one, the story was obvious from about 10 minutes in. I mean, I kept hoping that there would be some really great twist, but one just never came. Sure, once or twice, it managed to surprise me with a scene or an action that I wasn't fully expecting.
But on the whole, every bit felt telegraphed because I'd seen it all in the other movies that I had listed. The characters are pretty bland and not developed at all. Also, making it really difficult to be invested in whether someone survives the ordeal.
And it's not really even able to produce much suspense that would then build chills or scares. The scenes change quickly, which, again, prevents the story from crafting anything that could make us even a bit afraid. So at the end of the movie, there is a sequence that makes it feel like the movie is self-aware.
It pokes fun at itself. But is that really the point? Is there a social commentary hidden here? Is it commenting on violence or on the desire of society to see the violence? And I can see it a little bit on the latter point. But when it does, it's blatant and then it's not well executed.
If you have to explain the message outright, how effective were you really in the storytelling? I want to believe that this is trying to be a commentary on the public's desire for violence to showcase how crazy it is that in one sense, the world abhors the amount of violence and terror shown on the news. But then at the very same moment, can't wait to see the next great slasher story come to their screen in the vein of entertainment. This dichotomy could be greatly examined and built out.
But instead, the story treats the audience like children and attempts to spell out every single detail. It's like the story had all this exposition that it wants to get out, but can't manage to finish the sentence. And had this not borrowed from so many different horrors, it may have been more effective in its terror.
But one trope after another makes its way onto the screen, breaking any sort of tension or scariness that may have been building. I got more distracted at trying to picture all the movies this steals from than what's actually going on in the scenes. And had the commentary been more clever in its delivery rather than relying on stealing so much from other films in order to make its point, which then it painfully has to explain line by line, this may have worked as an effective message to society.
All in all, this is more a squandered effort and poor use of 95 minutes. The atmosphere, camera angles, gore and imagery all work to build something that was at least ominous and could have been terrifying, but instead gives us a lazy and stolen social commentary. I wanted to like this and had been really looking forward to it.
Unfortunately, we're sometimes let down in life, and this just happens to be one of those times. If I am to rate A classic horror story I'd give it 5/10.
Thanks for reading!