It's a film that has a high risk of being hated by many for the way it subverts our expectations. It's also a film made by people who clearly love cinema, full of excellent production values, charismatic acting and with a strong social message. It takes patience and isn't as bloody and scary as it was sold, but its third act makes the whole trip worth it.

This film is centred on a group of five people who are carpooling in an RV on a trip to Calabria in southern Italy. While driving at night they swerve to avoid a dead animal in the road and hit a tree... when they awaken it is daytime, the RV is in a forest clearing and most strangely there is no sign of the road. In the clearing there is a somewhat sinister house. One of the five is badly hurt so stays in the RV, the two other men, a doctor and a young aspiring film maker head into the woods looking for the road but only find a macabre tableau featuring severed pigs' heads before ending up back where they started; the two girls who stayed behind enter the house and find odd pictures. Reunited the film maker tells them a dark story told by his mother; one about a strange murderous cult. It looks as if it was more than a story as a group of people in animal masks start to hunt them down for their sacrifices.

The most obvious thing to say about this film is that it isn't afraid to reference other films in both style and content... 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre', 'The Wicker Man' and 'Friday the 13th' to name just a few. There is a really great atmosphere that makes the viewer sure that something bad is about to happen most of the time. When the bad things do happen they are mostly done in a way that doesn't show too much; cutting away at the last moment to convince any viewer who closed their eyes to avoid seeing something horrible convinced that it was shown. That isn't to say there is no gore. The characters are typical of those one tends to find in these films and the actors do a fine job bringing them to life while playing with horror stereotypes. Matilda Lutz, from the excellent French film 'Revenge', stood out the most. Inevitably for a modern horror movie there is a twist at the end; it isn't too obvious but when it comes one can think back to things said previously which can make one wonder why you didn't spot it sooner. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to fans of somewhat unpleasant, naturalistic seventies horror.

These comments are based on watching the film in Italian with English subtitles.

But with a certain charm though, unusual and entertaining charm, maybe not fun, but good enough to retain your attention. Nothing exceptionnal however. Some lines may remind Dario Argento and the glorious Giallo era of the sixties and seventies, the Italian charm...With also a bit of WICKER MAN and B MM. Bloody charm and charisma. But now, the slasher genre is back, joining the zombie one for the horror fans. The ending is fairly good, the best part anyway of this film.