31 Nights of Halloween Horror - The Binding

The Binding

93 mins

Dir. Domenico Emanuele de Feudis

2020/Italy

New horror films, we always watch them wanting them to be good.  I have discovered plenty of amazing films going in blindly, having no idea what the movie was about and coming out pleasantly surprised.  So I had hopes for this one, plus it comes from the land of Argento, Fulci, D'Amato, Soavi, Margheriti.  Italy is long over due to reclaim their reign of horror.

Movie opens with a prequel, lady screaming, being held against her will, more screaming, they slice her back open, more screaming.  OK, don't know what is going on here, but obviously a prelude to something.  Cut to a woman and her fiancee and daughter driving through beautiful southern Italy to her future mother-in-law's house.  OK, kid is in the car, I can see  one creepy factor coming up in this movie.  They get to the Mother-in-law's house which is a big somewhat run down mansion in the woods. Ok so creepy old house, with creepy old lady servant.  Daughter wanders around the house, sees someone in a room and the door slams shut. Ok, so there are things happening in this house in secret.  So far all the typical story elements are lining up.  Obviously something sinister is afoot here, let's see how this story unfolds..  Kid finds a creepy area in the forest, trees are dying, Fiancee reveals his mother is a healer, she can heal the trees of their illness.  OK, so there is some old world Italian witchcraft going on here, I get it, I'm still in so far, even though things have been plodding along.  Kid gets bit by a spider one night, and by spider, I mean a big fucking hairy thing with fangs that fucks her up.  Perhaps it is time to go?  Who wants to live in a house where spiders the size of a fucking phone book can bite you.  But no worries, mother-in-law is a healer, she can fix it no problem.  Couple days go by, daughter starts to get worse instead of better.  Oh yeah, there is something we forgot to tell you.  Your daughter is actually cursed, but don't worry Mother-in-law can fix that too.

I was really excited about this movie going in.  I had hopes of discovering a scary movie revitalizing the Italian horror genre.  A lot of the elements are there, but ultimately they don't know what to do with them and what they do do is so lack luster, you are never really frightened  or impressed or by the end, care.  This movie is pretty much the equivalent of, you are hungry and you are looking for something to eat, you could go out, but you are too lazy and just want to find something in the house.  But you haven't been food shopping so your cupboard is pretty bare.  All you can find is some stale bread that is hardly soft anymore and some peanut butter past the expiration.  But not even good peanut butter made from the Amish folk, some kind of healthy fake peanut butter shit you were eating when you were on a health kick years ago.  So you reluctantly attempt to spread it on the bread but it rips the bread with each spread of the knife.  You eventually just give up and eat it anyway, a dry tasteless stale peanut butter sandwich and what do you wash it down with?  Nothing, because you don't have anything to drink either, so you pour yourself a glass of tap water.  That's what this movie is, a boring old peanut butter sandwich with tap water.

But hey, I am jaded, I have seen a few horror movies in my time and I know I am a tough critic.  So don't take my word for it.  You never know until your try.  The Binding just came out on Netflix, give it a watch, but don't come running to me saying you were right, I should have gone food shopping.  Italy still has a way to go to becoming the homemade pasta sauce of the horror genre again.  Right now they are still Ragu.