Christopher Roth (2010)
Acclaimed horror author Christopher Roth feels the need for change. His gruesome ideas are beginning to tun his dreams into nightmares. Deciding to write a romantic novel Roth and his wife Catherine head to a remote house in Umbria, Italy. Soon after a young couple are found brutally murdered in the woods near the Roth's rented home. The idyllic getaway soon becomes a place where Christopher Roth's nightmares will become horrific reality.
This fine Italian film is a slow burning affair, taking its time to unfold and allowing the story time to breathe like a fine wine. The film has a top notch cast for a modern horror film. Out go the usual vacuous, faceless teens ripe for the slaughter and in come excellent Spanish actor Joaquim De Almeida as Roth and the lovely Anna Galiena as his wife Catherine. Like me you may remember Galiena from her outstandingly erotic turn in Patrice Leconte's The Hairdressers Husband. Hollywood veteran Ben Gazzara also adds prescence to the early parts of the film.
Maxime Alexandre (High Tension) takes on the directing duties and combines it with his normal director of photography role, In this Alexandre shows a beautiful eye for the camera, his photography allowing us a glimpse at the beauty of the Italian countryside which is a stark contrast to later scenes of the bathroom murder, a scene shot in a clinically sterile white environment. Whilst mentioning murder its only right to praise Alexandre for using the master of make up Gianetto De Rossi. De Rossi's graphic kills are like bloody sketches from a bygone era in todays largely sanitized world of the CGI effect.
The films stately pace during the first hour will probably put people off but anyone who enjoyed films such as The Dark Half could do worse than have a look at this fine example of a modern giallo.
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