[EXPRESSO] Black Parthenope (2022) | ♫ Goin’ Naples Underground ♫

Bringing you more new italian horror movies coverage, the new ones that just kinda “sprout” out of nowhere into the programming schedule of my local cinemas, with no fanfare and almost no national marketing budget to speak of.

And i guess this is the year of smaller italian horror movies like this that frustrate me, as they make good use of distinctive regional italian locations and have some potential, but kinda squander it or are afflicted by fairly big flaws.

Black Parthenope is a horror thriller set in the incredibly extensive set of underground catacombs and tunnels of Naples, the so called “Naples Underground”, where some business people met in order to sell the entire “underground city” to a company that’ll make parking lots out of it, but they get lost and haunted by the neopolitean folklore legend of the “Monaciello” (meaning “small monk”), a wronged soul that was shunned and then killed in the underground tunnels, forever seeking revenge on anyone that walks his haunting grounds.

The Neapolis Underground setting it’s great, some of the scenes manage to create a decent atmosphere, the cast it’s decent and it’s a well produced movie… but it’s almost brought down entirely by how shallow, grating and obnoxious the characters are, to say nothing of the aggressively awful dialogue, and how uneven and often middlesome direction can be, falling back to cliches in a way telling of this being a feature debut for the director in question.

While the final part partially redeems the movie from “proper bad” territory, the first act almost makes you wanna give up on it entirely, but at least you can tell that this movie was always meant to be a thriller-horror movie, unlike the previosly reviewed The Bunker Game.

Even so, it’s definitely not a bad effort!

[EXPRESSO] The Vigil (2019) | Ghost Orthodox

Directed and written by Keith Thomas (in his feature directorial debut here), this Blumhouse production tells of Yakov, a down on his luck fellow, who is contacted by a rabbi of his former Orthodox Jewish community, offering him 400 dollars to execute the rite of “shoimer”, consisting in keeping vigil to a recently deceased man, comforting his soul with prayers for a whole night.

The person who was supposed to keep vigil run away, but Yakov isn’t worried, as he has performed the rite a lot in the past, so he accepts, and enters the house of the departed, the recluse and odd Ruben Litvak, where the old widow is also resting. But as the night proceeds, strange events start happening,Yakov starts learning more of Ruben, his past, and demons from his own past start haunting him…

It’s an interesting premise that delivers an intriguing angle to this type of possession/exorcism movies, has a likeable main lead, great atmosphere and suspense, with an interesting choice for the entity (taken from Jewish folklore and demonology, i assume), and some ok scares, even though they’re definitely not the selling point. A simple premise that makes full use of the small house scenario, executed with elegance, sadly a bit lacking in the story department, or in the backstories to the characters (the Holocaust is involved), which are not bad, but are definitely the less inspired parts of the movie, the more typical.

Overall, though, The Vigil it’s more than sum of its parts, and definitely a good, really solid supernatural horror, a chiller, to be more specific, with some good visuals that mines religious elements from a different religion, instead of some brand of Christianity, and from a fairly ignorant prospective, they make for something you don’t see represented often in horror.

Recommended.