Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Use of Tropes: Stuck in the Darkness



An Italian horror film that was directed by Alessio De Bernardi and released in 2020, this was a film that struggled with itself, leaving quite a garbled mess behind.

Opening with an image of a military officer injecting the neck of someone, we then move to a group of spelunkers who are exploring, what is later described as, a bomb shelter but is much larger in scope than one would expect. There is little time to get to know the cavers as one, Luca (Stefano Villavecchia) wanders off and is attacked and then they are all attacked.

bat creature

It is within the creature design that we get our primary tropes. Some look like bat-faced creatures and later we see one resting whilst hanging upside down and another unfurl wings. There are others that wear gasmasks, though it looks like they have large ears. As the film progresses we get back story of military experiments splicing DNA from mice and bats into people. The type with wings clearly have bat DNA and I assume the others have mouse.

gas mask creatures

The creatures attack those who enter their lair and we do see neck biting and some flesh eating. The film introduces a second group of spelunkers looking for the first and then an armed rescue squad. We also get a side story of Mauro (David Scarantino) raising his daughter as a single father – though he is drawn as a drunk and violent man. She finds the bunker and, it is clear, is aware of the creatures. Unfortunately, the film just throws these elements in without due narrative diligence and the whole thing becomes garbled. Having some scenes take place out of linearity doesn’t help in this case, either.

drawing monsters

As for the trope, it is a predator that looks like a bat creature, they were human and created by science – though the film fails to explain how they lasted down there, what they fed on normally or whether they bred.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK

No comments: