Studio: Netflix
Director: Roberto De Feo, Paolo Strippoli
Writer: Lucio Besana, David Bellini, Robert De Feo, Paolo Strippoli, Milo Tissone
Producer: Maurizio Totti, Alessandro Usai, Iginio Straffi
Stars: Matilda Lutz, Francesco Russo, Peppino Mazzotta, William Merrick, Yuliia Sobol, Alida Baldari Calabria, Cristina Donadio, Francesca Cavallin
Review Score:
Summary:
Five strangers carpooling together become stranded in an Italian forest where they inexplicably encounter familiar horror movie scenarios.
Review:
Prior to its release, some confusion appeared to exist about “A Classic Horror Story” possibly being veiled in secrecy. A plot summary was nowhere to be found. The film featured Matilda Lutz, who starred in the highly acclaimed thriller “Revenge” (review here), and the less lauded “Rings” for that matter (review here), yet no one was buzzing about her being back in the suspense spotlight once again. Were details intentionally concealed as part of a sneaky PR ploy, or was this merely a routine case of Netflix’s typically murky (read: nearly non-existent) marketing whenever smaller-scale movies with subtitles are involved?
Contrary to what more than one genre media outlet speculated, I don’t believe there was any strategic skullduggery at work to make the movie appear mysterious. I certainly don’t see how the simple logline of “Five strangers stranded in a forest inexplicably face familiar fright film scenarios” spoils anything not shown in “A Classic Horror Story’s” first 15 minutes. Though I can see how jaded horror hounds might hear that description and think, “Eh, ANOTHER meta-movie that plays in a sandbox built from ‘cabin in the woods’ clichés? Pass.”
By virtue of how the tale turns out as well as what’s inherent in its design, “A Classic Horror Story” proudly wears its influences on its sleeve. Among many others, “Texas Chain Saw Massacre, “Silent Hill” (review here), “Midsommar” (review here), and every movie ever made where someone gets lost in the woods all have some sort of sound, sight, or entire scene recreated in one way or another.
But “A Classic Horror Story” is less of an homage to specific titles and more of a smorgasbord of purposefully redundant tropes served in a bottomless trough. “Found footage” briefly frames early introductions to the five main players. The RV they’re carpooling in wrecks after swerving to miss something in the middle of a remote road. Their cellphones have no service. They seemingly wander in supernatural circles. They suddenly split up for no good reason. Someone even dangerously strays hundreds of yards away from safety to “drain the lizard” in the dead of night.
It’s not just big beats. Specific shots get in on the game too. A wide eyeball silently spies slaughter through a peephole. A spike threatens to pierce a different eyeball. One woman hides with a hand over her mouth to stifle terrified gasps.
The thing is, “A Classic Horror Story” doesn’t play any of this for parody. These clichés don’t scream, “Look what I’m doing!” They don’t try to smirk at the audience either. They simply happen. If you were someone who only watches, let’s say three horror movies a year max, you wouldn’t necessarily hear every echo or see each mirrored image on display.
As I was sitting there dismissively saying to myself, “Yeah yeah, I’ve seen this a million times before - Oh really, they’re also going to do this now?” and so on, I noticed I was gradually gaining appreciation for the skillfully subtle hand delivering the derivativeness. Again, without giving anything away, “A Classic Horror Story” is derivative for a reason. But I have to give co-directors Roberto De Feo and Paolo Strippoli a great deal of credit for sequencing the tropes in such a fashion that they don’t immediately break the fantasy so some film nerd can definitively say, “Oh that’s just ripping off such-and-such.” There’s more craftsmanship to the movie than that.
Out of everything alluded to either consciously or unconsciously, the movie “A Classic Horror Story” brought to mind most was David Bruckner’s outstanding thriller “The Ritual” (review here). “A Classic Horror Story” evokes similarly eerie folk horror, replete with unsettling pagan practices, entranced villagers wearing masks made from animal remains and tree bark, and massive stick effigies flanked by flaming torches.
Considering its high creep factor, there’s enough style in the scenery to get a kick out of the overall spookshow even with its familiarity. Points start getting docked for disposable character development that’s of no substantial narrative value. “A Classic Horror Story” only gets lethargic during regular pauses for predominantly pointless conversations that offer banalities about a disgraced doctor, a problematic pregnancy, and other forgettable fluff. These ancillary additions feel so slight in light of the maddening mystery on everyone’s immediate minds that inconsequential moments of interpersonal bonding bounce right off the main terror tale.
After factoring in the pros of the film’s professional polish and the cons of some throwaway background noise, “A Classic Horror Story’s” final score comes down to how well its ending works. Some people will find the revelation regarding what’s really going on to be entertaining in a “that’s so dopey, it’s almost brilliant” sort of way. Others will moan, “Oh please, really?” so loudly that they won’t even hear everything. No matter which way it leans for you, the payoff still isn’t as tight as it needs to be to enter “A Classic Horror Story” into any ongoing water cooler talk about modern, memorable horror movies. Maybe Netflix suspected as much, which could be what caused them to keep a lid on the film in the first place.
Review Score: 65
It is moderately compelling in the moment, but it has a hard time holding up to even cursory scrutiny as far as believable “found footage” concepts go.