DEVIANCE

A man and a woman are sitting at the table of a luxurious restaurant. Well-dressed and good-looking, the two are clearly in the middle of a romantic dinner. But his words soon suggest that in reality the two are hunting... The prosperous world of Italian indie cinema gives us short films in abundance, often belonging to the thriller (or horror) genre, as if chills, blood, and fear particularly attract young filmmakers. A fact that is always a pleasure to confirm because it is a sign of hope, an open door to the future that in recent years has been constantly limping, due to a purely genre cinematic situation that struggles in a comatose state... always on the verge of rebirth and then promptly resolved in scattered brushfires. On the pages of Horrormovie.it, we often find ourselves talking or reviewing independent works, and I do not deny that on some occasions I had to give up, refraining from "speaking badly" about small films that objectively were not so bad, but in my opinion, they were still bad publicity. Fortunately, there are more times when we are signaled films of value, as recently happened with "Deviance," the debut short film by the young Veronese Matteo Mascotto. Just ten minutes to tell us the life of two mad people. Young and beautiful, probably wealthy, arrogant in their way of speaking and behaving, and careless about the value of life... especially others'. The image of a society devoid of values that challenges morality for a taste of transgression rooted in custom rather than the desire for rebellion. A few lines to understand that something in the heads of that couple is not right, then the confirmation and the horror. The screenplay by Matteo Mascotto, David Barbieri, and Riccardo De Flaviis revolves around the dialogues, well-written and clever in arguing and advancing a precise thesis. The weak point, if any, lies in the subject itself, which is not very original in telling the horror of the bourgeoisie using an imagery well-rooted in tradition and lacking real surprises regarding the unfolding of the story. But there is almost awareness of this, and here comes the good choice to rely on dialogue, on the back-and-forth, supported also by the acting skills of the two protagonists Fabio Morelli and Benedetta Rossi, credible and charismatic. "Deviance" is therefore a convincing and measured debut, the right compromise to tell a thriller story in a different way than usual by following a path that turns its own limits into virtues.