- Directed by Vincenzo Ricchiuto
- Written by Vincenzo Ricchiuto, Germano Tarricone
- Stars Giuseppe Pambieri, Stefania Casini, Tania Bambaci
- Run Time: 89 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_WMExrSfCc
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
We suspected right from the beginning that it wasn’t going to be a simple crime, but there was more to it than we expected. And it went further than we expected. The cast was good, the gore effects were realistic, and the story moves well. We really liked it.
Synopsis
Kids run through an abandoned building, pursued by an older man with a beard. It looks like the kids stole a gold cross. Things escalate, and the girl stabs the old man. Credits roll.
Antonio’s wife nags him about giving someone another chance, but Antonio says the kid is a deadbeat. He can learn the craft, but he’s no artist. As the two old people talk, three younger ones hang out outside, waiting for the oldsters to go to bed. Stefano is clearly the leader, and Ariana likes him a lot. The guy in the back seat is the one who came up with this particular plan. They’re the three kids we saw earlier, all grown up now.
The three get out of the car, put on masks, and take weapons out of the trunk. It’s time to go inside. They pick the lock and disable the alarm. They spread out, exploring, looking for the old man’s “lab.” They can’t find it, but Roberto loses his patience and goes upstairs to find out where it is from the old man himself. They burst into the oldsters’ bedroom and torment Antonio’s wife, Giovanna. Finally, Antonio relents and says he’ll show them where it is.
Antonio asks, “Are you sure you want to go in?” He leads them to a secret door that slides open. Inside is a bunch of jewelry and tools. Antonio is a goldsmith, and there are a lot of goodies in the room. Stefano and Arianna tie up the old folks, and then the three head for the gold room to loot it. As they load up their bags, we notice the door closing behind them automatically. The door was on a timer, and now they’re locked in.
Outside, a policeman drives by and notices the criminals’ car parked outside. He rings the bell just as Antonio and Giovanna get untied. The officer sees one of the masks on the floor, but the couple inside swear that they’re fine, so he goes away.
Antonio turns on the camera in his workshop and addresses the criminals. Antonio promises he’s not going to call the police, as he has something far worse in store for them. He surprises them by knowing many personal things about them, including their names and that Arianna has a cat at home.
We get a flashback to a robbery that Stefano did on his own, freezing out the other two. Then he lied about it to Arianna and Roberto.
Giovanna tells Antonio that she might make the kids a cake. He says they’re criminals, but she wants to make one anyway.
Antonio continues telling his prisoners’ stories. He spills that Arianna aborted Roberto’s baby behind Stefano’s back. She lies about the whole story, but he knows the basics are true. In the ensuing scuffle, Roberto shoots Stefano.
Antonio tells Giovanna, “We’ve lost one,” and she’s disappointed. “He was the healthy one!” He forgets to hit the mute button so the prisoners can overhear the old people talking. It soon becomes clear that Antonio and Giovanna have plans for the surviving pair.
The policeman comes to the door again; he is upset about seeing that mask and wants to see it again. Masks like that were worn by robbers in the area. He notices a bruise on Giovanna’s face and marks on her wrists from being tied up. He asks what’s really going on, and Antonio says, “Nothing.” He finds the monitor screen and turns it on; he sees everything. Then Giovanna stabs him with a kitchen knife.
Roberto, in the cell, finds a back door with some stairs leading down. He and Arianna quickly descend. They find a big room with several tables; one of them has a person on it under a sheet. Suddenly, the room fills with gas, and they pass out.
They wake up strapped to tables as Antonio operates on the third person. That goes badly, but at least he has the two new ones. Giovanna tells them a bit about Antonio, and it seems there has been a long line of “experiments.” Antonio moves his surgical tools over to Roberto’s table. The old man then cuts Roberto’s eyelids off and removes an eye.
Meanwhile, Giulio, the criminals’ outside man, has killed his partner and finally arrives and comes inside. He works his way downstairs, where Roberto has now lost both eyes. But Antonio gives him golden replacement eyes with a jewel where the pupil goes. Turns out Giulio’s the son of the old couple, and he’s the one who tricked the criminals into doing all this. He’s the one who followed and learned all the trio’s secrets. Antonio has mixed feelings for his son– he’s the deadbeat he was talking about early on.
His eyes now replaced with jewels, Roberto wakes up. Meanwhile, Arianna grabs an instrument from the operating table and picks the lock on her handcuff. She stabs Antonio in the eye and gets herself loose. Roberto is dead. She whacks Guilio a few times over the head and runs upstairs, where she’s sedated by Giovanna and dragged back downstairs.
In the morning, Giovanna and Giulio talk. “Now it’s your turn. Are you up for it?” They go downstairs and get to work on Arianna’s eyes.
Sometime later, we see that her operation was a big success.
Commentary
Those big “baby face” masks look really cool, but I can’t imagine it’d be easy to see anything, especially in a dark house.
There was a lot of backstory here that we didn’t get until the end, and even then, not everything was explained. The acting is good. There is some well-done gore, but not as much as you might expect. The pacing and camerawork are excellent. Mostly, we’re held in suspense as we wait to see why this is all happening.
Overall, I liked it a lot.