Il bosco fuori (2006)

User Rating:

4.7/10   

Director:

Gabriele Albanesi

Writer:

Gabriele Albanesi (written by)

Release Date:

24 August 2007 (Italy)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

There are some lines that must never be crossed... beyond them all... is The Last House in the Woods.

Plot Keywords:

Gore | Held At Gunpoint | Chainsaw | Hit By Car | Ghost House Underground

Cast

Daniela Virgilio	...	Aurora
Daniele Grassetti	...	Rino
Gennaro Diana	...	Antonio
Santa De Santis	...	Clara
David Pietroni	...	Cesare
Geremia Longobardo	...	Ginger
Cristiano Callegaro	...	Diego
Luigi Campi	...	Osvaldo
Valter Gilardoni	...	Emidio
Fabiano Malantrucco	...	Giulio
Francesco Lopez	...	Andrea
Elisabetta Rocchetti	...	Elena
Enrico Silvestrin	...	Luca

Also Known As:

The Last House in the Woods (International: English title)

Runtime:

85 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Certification:

Italy:VM18 | USA:Unrated (DVD rating)

Filming Locations:

Castel Gandolfo, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

NeroFilm

Movie Connections:

References Io la conoscevo bene (1965)

Soundtrack:

Tema finale

You like the red stuff?

This Italian micro-budget horror production isn't that good, but nonetheless it's not too bad for a first shot at a feature length production, as writer / director Gabriele Albanesi has created three horror shorts before it. With a title like that you'll know where it's target audience lies, and for most part it delivers on it if you just go in expecting something rather amateurishly crazy and explosively bloody in what is an all to familiar get-up. You can see its style is raw, lurid and recalls shades of 70s / 80s drive-in grindhouse exploitation. It's a total throwback. Even with this element, still it's hard to find it disturbing. It's far from it actually, as it's over-the-top hysterics (especially involving three moronic douche bags) and macabre confusion can see it fall on being darkly humorous.

A young couple, Aurora and Rino are trying to come to terms to where their relationship is at or what was, but they're interrupted by three loutish thugs that bash Rino and attempt to rape Aurora. However an older married couple driving pass saves them from that disastrous fate and takes them back to their place to recover. But unknowingly to them this couple has a secret which might put Aurora and Rino in a great deal of unexplainable trouble.

The narrative is thoughtlessly thin and dank, but cluttered with so many disjointed plot structures (some that feel like a second thought as if made on the spot) which go onto to lead to an inevitable (and perplexing) explanation to all of this demented carnage. I'm at a lost?! You can easily spot the influences from other horror films though. 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' shoots to mind. The unsubtle script was mostly horrendous.

After a plodding beginning-- setting up Aurora and Rino's rocky relationship and their early encounters with the brain-dead thugs. The whole mystery surrounding the hospitable couple and their son is what holds you, until it throws you into the ugly, explicit violence and bewildering situation. Nothing suspenseful about it, but it's flipped out with it gushing with plenty of red stuff and gore skews into camp territory, but that final closing is shockingly weak and rushed. What was going against it is that there was no one to really cheer on (yep Aurora and Rino were less than desirable characters) as they weren't painted oh so greatly.

Gabriele Albanesi's direction stays conventional with some neatly realized images and fast moving zooms, but it's considerably well shot. Even when it decides the shake the camera about a couple of times. The electronic score stays low-key with a sensitively harrowing vibe, striking back to those old features. The pacing moves quick enough and the limited resources are handled effectively (like the make-up and splatter effects).The performances are very indifferent and quite poor (thanks again to those three ridiculous thugs). Daniela Virgilio and Daniele Grassetti didn't make much of an imprint as Aurora and Rino. Gennaro Diana and Santa De Santis's stiltedly icy portrayals bordered on farcical as the mysterious couple. David Pietroni was just laudably hammy as the main front man of the trio.

Unusually ragged, but slightly amusing and outrageous Italian horror.