CRY_WOLF

Near Westlake College, the corpse of a brutally murdered student is discovered. Some students from the college then decide to take advantage of this macabre event to play a prank on the entire student body: they send a collective email warning students of the possibility that a serial killer, the Enigmista, is lurking nearby, already responsible for murders in another college. Of course, the Enigmista is their invention, but someone seems to have taken this story seriously and begins to commit the murders invented by the boys and described in the email on the skin of the students responsible for the prank. There is a fable that tells the story of a lying boy who shouts "Wolf, wolf!" and many come to his rescue, but it was all a joke. The episode repeats several times, but it is always a prank by the boy. One day, however, the boy is really attacked by a wolf and when he asks for help, no one comes to his aid, thinking it was another lie. "Nickname: The Enigmista" does nothing but translate this fable into a thriller/horror film, but unfortunately, the result is a dull and boring semi-slasher, absolutely incapable of adequately developing the potential of a subject, not original, but appealing. However, a necessary clarification must be made: ATTENTION, "Nickname: The Enigmista" is actually titled "Cry Wolf" and has nothing to do with the much more dignified "Saw - The Enigmista!" The Italian distribution company, which also distributed "Saw", had the questionable idea of launching a deceptive advertising campaign to sell their modest product better, making "Cry Wolf" pass as a sort of sequel to "Saw" (which is already ready and soon to be distributed in Italy as well), thanks to the excellent earnings obtained by the latter. The advertising campaign did not limit itself to the simple forgery of the title, but also to deceptive launch phrases (the promotional tagline of "Saw" read "every puzzle has its pieces," that of "Nickname: The Enigmista" instead "this time the puzzle is online") and a clumsy cover operation was set up within the film itself. In fact, in the film the killer frequently communicates via chat and in the original version signs "The Wolf," but in the Italian version, to justify the title, a tag with "The Enigmist" was stuck on the original nickname. In short, a real mess on the verge of legality, which also made lose that little bit of interesting that this film could offer; in fact, the killer goes hunting when there is a full moon, like a wolf, and with his original nickname (The Wolf, indeed), he can also more evidently recall the aforementioned fable. Closing the necessary informative parenthesis, let's return to the film. In reality, there is little to say about this film that, despite the premises, does nothing but roughly replicate the characteristics of the slasher films of the last generation, but with all their defects, without knowing how to "steal" any merit. Therefore, we will see on stage a mixed group of students, all good-looking, intent on doing everything but studying, perhaps less stereotypical than usual, but absolutely unpleasant. From a slasher (a genre to which the film belongs, but on more than one occasion it seems closer to youthful thriller), one would have expected bloody murders and an eye for sexy scenes; instead, in this film, not a single drop of blood is spilled and, despite their young age, the protagonists of the film are not in full hormonal storm, as many other teen movies have taught us. Therefore, "Nickname: The Enigmista" does not even succeed in the simple attempt to entertain the public, on the contrary, despite a duration that does not exceed 90 minutes, it can even turn out to be boring, also due to a flat direction by the unknown Jeff Wadlow. In the cast appears the singer Jon Bon Jovi in the role of a professor (not foreign to horror cinematography, since he was the protagonist in the sequel of "Vampires"), while the other performers are young actors little known, but already with some experience in the field of horror such as Lindy Booth ("Wrong Turn" and "Dawn of the Dead") and Jared Padalecki ("House of Wax").