Summary:
An adaptation of Lovecraft's novel,
"The Shunned House" follows the stories of three separate characters
with equally separate stories which are all connected in one way: all
the characters have died within the realm of an isolated chateau. With
the movie tracing three separate plot lines and time structures the
movie slowly moves forward, condensing the disparity in time frame until
they all become connected at a moment of intersection: when a paranormal
specialist/journalist stumbles upon their stories and unfolds his discovery
to his cynical girlfriend.
The film opens with a young boy whose
fateful chase after a ball sucked him into a house. 25 years later a
couple, Rita and Alex, are passing by the same house in hopes of investigating
rumors of its being haunted for Alex's upcoming story. But all that
they discover at first is a very bad odor, which seems to be coming
from an unconventional hole in the ground. But suddenly Rita sees it,
a room full of women, ghostly women, praying.
One by one the story reveals its separate
plots through the lens of the once-cynical Rita. Forced to believe,
Rita is being unveiled the visions of the house's victim's deaths. As
she is taken into the story, century by century, she is randomly immersed
into the house and forced to witness one death at a time. By night it
haunts her dreams and has her speaking French. By day Rita is growing
sick, claiming the house as the alleged reason to her illness.
As Alex works to uncover the story of
a lifetime it may become the last story of his lifetime. The longer
he and Rita stay in house the more Rita feels as if the house's reign
of terror threatens to impinge upon their own lives. But with Alex intent
on a story, can the two get the story and still make it out alive? Or
is their a bigger price to pay for the knowledge Alex seeks?
This foreign film takes horror to new
levels with its presentation. The tone, the setting, the music, everything
was produced around the most detailed eye and ear to manifest a uniquely
synchronized evocation of fear and darkness in an audience, one that
ironically mirrors the films own characters and plot. Do not expect
rays of sunshine or picturesque scenes of livelihood. In a word, this
film is dark.
Moreover the film is an anthological
compilation, juxtaposing the "Dreams in the Witch House", "The Shunned
House" and the "Music of Eric Zann" into one tale. Of course the layering
effect and the continual progression of all three tales allows the stories
to unfold and open and close in on themselves, making the house the
center stage for most of the plot, and coincidentally a major contribution
to the film. In a way the house it its own character, the inanimate
focal point for the film, the man-made character of artifice which,
though inhuman, still seems to possess a life of its own.
Though there are a few hitches, as is
the case with every horror movie existing, the film takes on a remarkably
successful endeavor in which the plot, production, and portrayal are
just enough to let the glitches slide by hardly noticed. If you allow
yourself, you can completely fall into the film itself and take it for
what it is, a relief from all that was before.
Main Characters:
Giuseppe Lorusso plays Alex, the paranormal
specialist/journalist who has ventured to the haunted house in hopes
of a story.
Federica Quaglieri plays Rita, Alex's
skeptical girlfriend who, for some inexplicable reason, is being forced
to see all the visions of death in the house.
