Netflix And Chill: A Classic Horror Story (2021)

If the title doesn't clue you in immediately, the opening act, with a number of references to other movies and a number of very familiar tropes playing out (the group travelling through some quiet countryside, a vehicular mishap, ominous signs of dangerous entities in the area, etc), should let you know that you're about to be taken through territory that has been used in hundreds, if not thousands, of horror movies throughout the past few decades.

The core group is made up of Elisa (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz), Fabrizio (Francesco Russo), Riccardo (Peppino Mazzotta), Mark (Will Merrick), and Sofia (Yuliia Sobol). These people aren't close friends. They are just making use of a rideshare app, although they bond quickly enough when an accident leaves them stranded in the middle of some woods, and leaves Mark with a broken leg. Before you can say "Wrong Turn", things start to look very odd. And dangerous.

Directed by Robert De Feo and Paolo Strippoli, who both also worked on the screenplay with Lucio Besana, this is a strange, and at times quite brave, approach to horror movies. It's a commentary on our relationship with the visceral thrills of the horror genre, a spiky warning about the need for more and more content, and it does all this with horror movie tropes that aren't exactly subverted, but are simply used in a way that will have viewers wondering just how stupid the central characters might be until the third act starts to turn things over to show everything in a slightly different light. De Feo and Besana worked together on The Nest (which I have yet to see), but the heart of this work may come from Strippoli (considering his previous short was apparently shot entirely through Instagram stories). The finale of A Classic Horror Story may not feel like a good enough reward to horror fans who may tire of the excessive amount of genre trappings throughout the first hour, but it is at least able to deliver some gory goods alongside the kind of damning reflection that was inherent in darker films like Man Bites Dog and Funny Games.

The cast all do well. Lutz and Russo seem to get the most screentime, and the former gets to play a character introduced having a difficult enough time of things already, but everyone goes along with what is asked of them, even if that means they only stand out when involved in a gory death scene. There's also a good performance from Alida Baldari Calabria, playing the typical frightened child that, much like everything here, we've seen many times before, the innocent victim discovered by our leads, who may or may not be exactly as she appears.

I ended up enjoying this, but I must admit that the first half was testing my patience slightly. It was only the knowledge that the film-makers may be making viewers comfortable before pulling the rug out that kept me from completely checking out. Not that anything here was bad. The score is decent, the practical effects are impressive, and sometimes impressively nasty, and the last minute or so, although completely unnecessary, underlines everything being said with humour and sledgehammer-subtlety.

6/10

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Shudder Saturday: Revenge (2017)

Revenge is, in a number of ways, a standard thriller that has an appalling sexual assault on a young woman as the catalyst for the rest of the plot. But, in a number of important ways, it's also decidedly NOT like many others you could select.

Written and directed by Coralie Fargeat, things start with Richard (Kevin Janssens) and his younger lover (Jen, played by Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz) being dropped off by helicopter at a remote house that will give them time together in peace. Well, that is the plan. They are soon joined by Richard's two friends, Stan and Dimitri, and one of the men decides that Jen should be available to him, despite what she may think about that. This sets off a chain of events that will, well, let's just say that things aren't going to end well for most of the main characters here.

Although it feels as if this couldn't possibly require the 108-minute runtime that it has, Revenge displays the plight of Jen in an unflinching way that allows viewers to see her strength develop without necessarily dwelling lasciviously on the trials that keep forcing her to grit her teeth and bear the pain she receives. There are moments here that will make you wince and flinch, including a downright brutal interface between a foot and a huge chunk of glass, but they're also satisfying. The title of the movie says it all, and the men are all completely deserving of the fate that Jen wants to deliver them.

Lutz is superb in the lead role, with her character developing in a way that feels based completely on a survival instinct kicking in, as opposed to any kind of hidden expertise that transforms her from victim to Sarah Connor by the halfway mark (a la the I Spit On Your Grave remake). The men, led by Janssens, but including the abuser and enabler, played by Guillaume Bouchède and Vincent Colombe, do a good job of being loathsome, and it's great to watch them grow more and more desperate as their situation worsens and they worry about their self-preservation.

Fargeat obviously puts a different spin on things, compared to a male director, and that is another plus point. We don't get too much background information on Jen, she's a typical young woman with typical plans for her life, as her entire character is about to be changed by this one major trauma, and the aftermath of it. The assault itself is filmed in a way that makes it clear what is happening without dwelling on anything that could be seen as exploitative, and it's only when the revenge starts to be executed that things become viscerally entertaining.

There are so many movies that you could choose to watch from the "rape revenge" subgenre, and yes it is a subgenre, but few of them are made with quite the same level of relative restraint and genuine interest in the character beyond showing them as a beauty to be broken and destroyed. If you have the stomach for it, this is a superior example, and that may be due in no small part to the fact that it is a woman at the helm, providing a different filter on the material.

8/10

You can buy the movie here.

Americans can buy it here.