Director: Raffaele Picchio
Year: 2021
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Zombie
Plot:
After seeking shelter from bandits, a father and his daughter are overcome by the hospitality offered by their hosts in an underground bunker only to realize the situation was a ploy to allow them to use her as a sacrificial pawn in an unholy ceremony afforded by zombified Knights Templars and must save her from being involved.
Review:
Overall, this was a pretty decent and enjoyable genre effort. One of the better aspects here is a fairly likable and chilling setup that offers up a rather intriguing series of events. The backstory here, offering the initial desecration by the living Templars and the cursed nature of their existence following it, starts this nicely enough as a means of introducing the creatures and the curse that runs over the community forcing them to try the sacrificial appeasement ceremony to satiate them. It provides the other necessary foundation needed for the couple’s purpose to be captured and taken in by the group as the setup for this plays out rather well in placing the pieces together.
This serves the film enough to be the framework for the creature attacks to take place. The inability to know what’s going on when they arrive at the compound allows for some rather fun moments showing them trying to get the daughter prepared after having the father tied up. The ceremony that takes place is quite fun and brings out the groups’ intensity in their preparations when the Templars arrive and feel the duplicity is intended to signal the start of a genuinely impressive series of encounters focusing on the Templars setting out on the rampage to seek revenge on the group in vicious, graphic means. Full of great action-packed confrontations with the Templars chasing down everyone they can through the twisting catacombs that allow for a series of great gore effects and a dark twist at the end, these have a lot to like.
There are a few issues to be had with this one. One of the main factors here is a general sense of rambling around in the second half when it doesn’t need to drive down the tension. With the focus on the preparations for the ceremony taking place and the need to keep the Templars satisfied, so much of the film wanders around in the same repetitive manner featuring the father continually alerting the Templars to him, the daughter screaming for him to come save her, and the still-alive group members trying to get to safety which can drag this setup out quite a bit. That also amounts to the finale few minutes where the full resolution of the film comes off as quite confusing and like it’s trying to generate an epic conclusion to set up further installments.
As well, there’s also a rather confusing setup that doesn’t tie this into the franchise all that much. The initial exploits of the film present this one as a reboot of the series with the opening shot of the Templars being zombified like the method used in the original before going off in a different direction involving the dystopian society that’s at the behest of the zombie creatures. This type of format where they’re lording over the community and demanding sacrifices is from a later installment and doesn’t make sense as to why the whole thing exists the way it does as it doesn’t come off with the type of coherence it should so it feels more like a franchise homage than a reboot, which are all that hold it down.
Overview: ***.5/5
A generally likable genre effort that works as a standalone entry more than a franchise entry, there’s enough to like here to be an enjoyable effort while its status as a franchise entry is one of the main downfalls here. Those who don’t mind and are curious about this one or are fans of the approach might like this one the most while most others should heed caution here.
Comments
Post a Comment