The camerawork from director Alberto Sciamma and cinematographer
Davide Manca are finely done, making use of daring camera angles and a couple
of nice overhead shots. The lighting is effective and they are able to achieve
some decent shadows on the actors and their surroundings. The old world locations
and set design makes for an appealing visual experience, including items such
as long curving stone steps and underground locations that resemble catacombs.
Filming took place in Italy, so they were able to find locations that contain an
authentic old world charm to them.
For the most part the acting is acceptable. Costas Mandylor
and Gianni Capaldi both give rather good performances, while Vinnie Jones makes
a brief appearance in order for the production to take advantage of his name
recognition. However, some of the acting is just flat out ridiculous, which is
most likely due to poor script decisions that affected how the characters are
portrayed from scene to scene.
The other major issues are with the score and how it was
edited. The score is all over the place, containing classical, punk rock, rock,
opera, and a traditional score. At times it works. When it doesn’t, it is
exceptionally annoying. There are multiple scenes where the score is just one
piano key being tapped twice, which makes it seem like a child scored parts of
this picture. There are also other moments where they use high pitched strings
and it is simply painful on the ears.
It should be noted that there are the typical elements that
generally attract and interest fans of the horror genre; there is nudity,
violence, a fair amount of blood, and several gorrific sequences. The special
effects and make up all look realistic when they are on the screen.
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| Can you recommend a good dentist? |
While there are a few quality moments in this movie that are
either bizarre, contain a little bit of humor, display gore, or have
interesting visuals, it isn’t quite enough to make this anything more than an
average motion picture.
Get your gore on and share this review.
-Raul Vantassle