DAY 27: Italian Cinema!

Jenny (Daisy Keeping), a young English woman, heads to Italy to reconnect with her estranged father, Dr. Brooks (David Brandon, Stagefright, Beyond Darkness). Once a respected medical professional, Brooks has traded in his stethoscope for a trowel, acting as an amateur archaeologist obsessed with a lake—an actual place, The Lake of Idols—once worshipped by the Etruscans.

As Jenny digs into her father’s project, she starts unearthing dark secrets about the lake, her own past, and the man she barely knows, sparking curiosity and a desire to uncover the truth. 

Back to the lake. Locals used to toss carved totems into the water as sacrifices to the spirits, but Brooks has been busy doing the opposite. He’s exhuming these ancient relics and throwing other stones into the water for reasons that aren’t exactly clear at the start.

With her dad constantly out researching, Jenny is left to her own devices. She’s caught between a dimly evil au pair named Olga (Joy Tanner, Prom Night IV) and spending afternoons reading Shelley by the lake. This habit quickly attracts an audience of pale, disfigured children from a nearby orphanage who emerge from the woods. Jenny, acting like some sort of goth-crazed den mother, starts bonding with them. Mistake, right? You know it.

This was director Riccardo Paoletti‘s first movie. He’s working on a no-budget, all-over-the-place script from Manuela Cacciamani and Carlo Longo, but he does his best with it. It’s nice to see that an Italian horror movie was made this century. I wish we could have seen what our favorites would have made for streaming channels.

You can watch this on Tubi.