THE HIDEOUT

After spending fifteen years in a psychiatric hospital, an Italian woman in her forties decides to open a restaurant in Davepoint, Iowa. The woman rents the Snake Hall, a singular residence built at the end of the 1800s by an ethologist snake breeder and the scene, in the 1950s, of a horrible and mysterious triple murder. Starting from the first night of staying at the Snake Hall, the new owner begins to hear strange rustlings coming from the walls and a shrill little voice that whispers an unsettling lullaby. Initially convinced that she was suffering from mental disorders again, the woman later learns about the bloody events that occurred fifty years earlier and begins to investigate the unsolved mystery. Eleven years after "L'arcano incantatore," Pupi Avati returns to horror and does so with the great class of a story with Gothic tones and truly chilling moments. "Il nascondiglio" confirms that the Bologna director is really comfortable with fear and sinister atmospheres, as he has demonstrated on every occasion that he has had to "play" with the horror genre. Avati has left his mark on Italian horror cinema with that small masterpiece "La casa con le finestre che ridono" and has found a way to confirm his talent with the excellent "Zeder" and the already mentioned and suggestive "L'arcano incantatore." This time we move away from the Emilia province where the director's previous works were set to arrive in American province, which, after all, does not differ much from Italian rural realities: a mystery linked to the past, a secret that involves the entire community and must remain so, a person foreign to the facts who gets involved and tries to bring the truth to light. All these elements, plus Avati's classic and highly professional style, make "Il nascondiglio" a solid and valuable film in every component and, for once, really capable of scaring. In fact, the obsessive atmosphere of the story, the unsettling locations, the darkness that envelops the Snake Hall and its sinister creaks or the shrill little voice that comes from its walls make this film succeed in the difficult attempt to raise the hair on the viewer's arms and make them jump from the chair on more than one occasion of real fright. Avati has therefore succeeded in one of the most difficult undertakings, namely scaring, and without using any special effects or gore brutality. The screenplay, written by the director himself, is indebted to the typical structure of the most classic "haunted house" story with more than one nod to "Amityville Horror" (it's no coincidence that Burt Young is in the cast, already an interpreter of "Amityville Possession"), starting from the sinister architecture of the house and the affordable price at which it is rented. Therefore, everything is played within the residence and the mysteries it contains, between unsettling noises and malevolent presences that inhabit it. At some points, the film might also seem "slow" in the unfolding of the narrative, but since the plot is mainly based on an investigation, the slow revelation of the details is certainly intended to increase the mystery and not to confuse the viewer with the multiple events of which the story is pregnant. The cast is excellent. Starting with the brilliant Laura Morante, who plays the unnamed protagonist, international fame actors such as Burt Young (the "Rocky" saga) and Treat Williams (Deep Rising) are added, as well as Yvonne Sciò (La masseria delle allodole), Rita Tushingham (Under the skin) and Giovanni Lombardo Radice (Paura nella città dei morti viventi). Good and suitable also the soundtrack curated by the faithful Riz Ortolani. In short, the year 2007 saw the return of true made-in-Italy horror, that horror made by already consolidated authors of the past who made our genre famous; from the unfortunate "Ghost Son" by Lamberto Bava to the pleasant albeit shabby "La terza madre" by Dario Argento, we have arrived at "Nascondiglio," Pupi Avati's return to horror that does not simply represent an excellent film, but the best Italian horror produced in many years. Curiosity. "Il nascondiglio" was born from a true story: Snake Hall really exists in a small town in the United States and was indeed the scene of horrible murders; moreover, an Italian woman (Bolognese, to be precise), with a past of mental disorders, went to stay there and stayed there for a very short time because intimidated by strange presences. To this unsettling story is added the personal experience of the director himself and his brother Antonio who tried twice to open an Italian restaurant in the Midwest of the United States, with many difficulties and always with a negative result.