NIKKI says:I said to Steve last night -- April has become "Handheld Month". We've had Diary of the Dead, Cloverfield, Welcome to the Jungle, and now this. Although not entirely handheld, the scary bits were mainly seen through a camera lens. I've decided movie directors are right: Things are scarier when presented in that style.
In this movie, the group is down in some abandoned tunnels. They stumble across some gutted fish. The one guy is all, hmm, let's go back. And then he looks forward and sees... briefly, quickly... SOMEONE! They scream and head back. Because this is Lovecraft territory, and we know it's not a person but a giant FISHMAN!
Not that we see the giant fishman. But still... we know.
The situation is this... A group of American filmmakers come to Italy because of a manuscript that has been found that features journal entries by H.P. Lovecraft that suggest he visited certain parts of Italy prior to writing his most famous works, Call of Cthulhu and Shadow over Innsmouth. The entries specifically mention the creepy things Lovecraft supposedly saw in those abandoned places.
The filmmakers want to solidify this apparent connection by finding something specific that proved Lovecraft was inspired by Italy, and not just his imagination.
So, they take their cameras and they start their seeking. Meanwhile, the main director guy just becomes more and more of an arrogant prick, and alienates everybody, so they get very little done. It's not the area that's doing this guy in, he was an asshole from the start, so we get this weird juxtaposition of an angry group in an angry area that just wants to be left alone. It's an interesting tension. And separates this film from Cloverfield with its camaraderie in a bad situation, and Welcome to the Jungle, in which the stresses of the situation turn those guys against each other.
Here, it's tense from the outset. Very cool twist on this sort of group-tries-to-solve-mystery sub-genre. This group eventually finds what they're looking for, and the final moments of the film are really creepy. I was afraid of fishmen in the house for a little while after it ended. The best scene, though, was the group asking some old fishermen for directions... man, that was harsh. Oh, and the scene where they hear music playing FROM NOWHERE!
Good movie, interesting story, love the concept, and there was some phenomenal acting by the one guy -- Fausto -- who just couldn't take the director's smarminess for one more second.
3/5
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