The Well (4 Stars)

This is the 32nd film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

Lauren is a young American woman who travels to Italy to restore a painting that's been damaged in a fire. On the bus into the village she meets three other Americans, who intend to camp in the woods to examine the local flowers. They promise to visit Lauren in the castle where she'll be staying, but she never sees them again. At night they're knocked out and put in cages around an old well. One by one they're thrown into the well to feed a creature that lives below.

You guessed it! The prison is in the castle's cellar. Lauren's work is somehow connected with the monsters, but I shan't say how. Watch it yourself.

I like the film because it has a retro feeling to it. There are no computer graphics, the gore is all handmade, like the Italian horror films of the 1980's. The director is Italian, and he's paying homage to those who have gone before him.