The Well Review

Lisa is a young American restorer, pupil of a father renowned in the profession, who is sent to Sambuci castle, in a remote village in Lazio, to restore an ancient painting blackened by a fire. She only has a few days to do so, because the painting has to be sent to an auction house. Her owner is a beautiful and enigmatic duchess who lives in the castle with her thirteen-year-old daughter, Giulia. As Lisa brings the painting to light, monstrous figures emerge, which also enter her increasingly realistic nightmares. Meanwhile, two girls and a boy that Lisa met upon her arrival and who had camped in the woods disappear and end up prisoners in a dungeon, where a deformed jailer comes to torment them and feed them to a mysterious creature at the bottom of a well .

The best compliment we can pay to The Wellthe new horror film from the musician and director Federico Zampaglione, is that it sticks to you like a shroud after watching, leaving you with a feeling of almost physical discomfort, which is a merit for a film like this. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what you say, whether it has already been done and how many masters, unconsciously or not, are cited, but as you do it and in this we like to think of Zampaglione, with the necessary proportions, a bit like Tarantino, nourished by visions which he then makes his own and returns in a new and effective way. There are many films and masters that resonate in The Well: the protagonist who is called to restore a painting obviously remembers the incipit de The house with laughing windowsand has the evocative name of Lisa (and the devil?), while physically she looks like a little sister of Susy Benner, the Jessica Harper of Suspiria. The castle brings to mind the Mario Bava de The horrors of Nuremberg Castlethe search for eternal beauty and youth has its roots in the myth of the cursed painting and the human sacrifices to preserve it in the innocent blood baths of the cruel Erzsébeth Batory). Then there are homages/references to the cinema of Lucio Fulci, Do not open that doorto more modern horror and gore like the saga of Hostels… In short, a union between the genre cinema of the present and the contemporary one, created God willing for the most part with handcrafted special effects, which make the splatter scenes even more effective and impressive (obligatory mention for the make up of Carlo Diamantini).

There is no doubt, in short, that Zampaglione loves and knows the genre he engages in, supporting the natural attraction that has always existed between rockers and horror cinema. But, precisely, he does not slavishly repeat plots and situations, having fun inventing, with the co-writer Stefano Masi really disturbing characters: we really liked the enormous deformed executioner of Lorenzo Renzi, bodybuilder who had the courage to gain 20 kilos for the role, as well as the impressive witch of Melanie Gaydos and the demon Guron of Stefano Martinelli, which seem to have come out of Bosch’s nightmares. The horrendous face of explicit and unremitting Evil contrasts with the beauty and elegance of Claudia Gerinithe daughter’s skill Linda Zampaglionealready on her way to becoming a notable actress at just 13 years old and of Lauren LaVerawhich has the right mix of grace and innocence to make us believe the story. Giovanni Lombardo Radicewho passed away shortly after filming, appears in a brief cameo in his return to the genre that made him famous, thrilling all those who admired him.

Perhaps there is a little too much irons in the fire, the (interesting) ending seems a little abrupt, some narrative turns are predictable and more sensitive viewers might want to look away from the cruder scenes that Zampaglione decides to show without censorship ( there’s a bit of the former too Hellraiseramong the inspirations), but it is still a pure and uncompromising horror, where past and present intertwine in a monstrous union and which can cheer up – so to speak – the audience of hardcore fans of the genre.