From the name of Netflix’s latest Italian horror film “A Classic Horror Story,” we can sense that this film intends to deal with horror film cliché but to what extent the directors duo Roberto De Feo and Paolo Strippoli are successful in narrating a story is the real question here. The film is now streaming on Netflix, starting July 14.
Plot:
In this gruesome suspense film, strangers traveling in southern Italy become stranded in the woods, where they must fight desperately to get out alive.
To all those classic horror movie fans of the 90s with horror, gore, and thrill to the core, “A Classic Horror Story” is a tribute and might catch your interest for the most part. In the beginning, you indeed get a vibe of the story taking turns of films like “Wrong Turn” (film series) or something like “A Cabin the Woods” where multiple characters get stranded in the middle of nowhere in an uninhabited place in the face of some unknown danger.
The gruesomeness although quite not visible on-screen also brings elements of slashers like those in “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” The story, involving some kind of ancient cult with human sacrifices in a sinister ceremony by the locals, also suggests its similarities with the 2003 Danish film “Midsommer”.
In the film, we see a group of strangers on a trip via carpool land themselves mysteriously in front of an abandoned cabin in the middle of the woods after they meet an accident. With an injured member in the group, as they start wondering about the incident and their way out of this unfamiliar territory, things start revealing the creepy surroundings.
“A Classic Horror Story” is one of those films that we like to be accepted with its similarities to other films, but it never really adds the atmospheric horrors that we all must have expected. I did not find this scary at all although I enjoyed some of its cinematography and performances of its cast. Probably, in their attempt to present these genre-specific chills, the filmmakers forget to add anything unique that would have made this a successful one.
Should you watch this film or not is entirely depends on you. If you are not too critical of the horror film offerings worldwide, and at the same time love this genre, no matter how cliché this may sound, “A Classic Horror Story” is a tribute even though it unapologetically draws a lot of things from many other such films. You will even find some scenes visually invoking as they suggest the striking brutality.
Cast: Matilda Lutz, Francesco Russo, Peppino Mazzotta, Will Merrick, Yuliia Sobol, Alida Baldari Calabria, Cristina Donadio, and Francesca Cavallin.
Directed by Roberto De Feo and Paolo Strippoli
Cinematography by Emanuele Pasquet
Distributed by Netflix
Release date: July 14, 2021
Where to watch A Classic Horror Story (2021)
