PLOT SUMMARY: When Elisa travels with strangers in a bus that meets with an accident, she finds her life upturned when they are all stranded in a strange location.
If you look closely, you'll find many horror movies with a similar pattern. The popular ones are where a family moves into a haunted house, teens being on a serial killer's list, road trips going haywire when taking a wrong turn...there are probably a dozen more.
These movies are made, we still watch them because sometimes they have a different twist or sometimes a favourite actor is playing a part or simply because they are entertaining.
More often than not, filmmakers will try to merge two or three subgenres and try to make a "different" movie out of it. They barely work out in the end but we still give them a shot. As Horror fans how can we not try to watch a different movie every now and then?
A Classic Horror Story is not about a single plot. It is an amalgamation of at least three sub-genres and in a way, it connects well and the end result is pretty decent.
A CLASSIC HORROR STORY Movie Plot
When we meet Elisa, she's in a diner not eating her food and talking to her mother who wants her to come home and be prepared for the abortion. Elisa is clearly not too happy about her parents taking charge of her life but she reluctantly agrees. The next thing she does is look for a ride and finds one on an app.
The ride in question is a trailer driven by Fabrizio. Onboard is a reclusive man Dr Ricardo, and a couple, Sofia and Mark.
Fabrizio seems obsessed with social media and creates a video post of him and his passengers before driving.
Beer is offered and Elisa hesitates to take it, unlike the others who drink it. But when she drinks it, she gets sick and asks to stop the trailer. She vomits on the side of the road while the other passengers get off and speculate. Mark decides he's a better driver than Fabrizio and gets in the driver's seat. Fabrizio is pissed off but relents.
It's nighttime and so when Mark sees a dead goat on the road, he swerves and causes an accident.
The next morning, Elisa awakes and finds herself half on the floor. The other passengers are tending to Mark who broke his leg. More shocking is the fact that they are in the middle of the forest and yes, the cellphones aren't working.
Dr Ricardo blames Mark for their predicament and then decides to take Fabrizio and go around the forest looking for the road. Sofia keeps desperately asking Elisa if she too blames Mark for the accident. Elisa is clearly thinking that yes it is his fault but doesn't want to get on Sofia's bad side and says, unconvincingly, that she doesn't blame her boyfriend for the accident.
Fabrizio and Ricardo go around, sees pig heads on stakes and run back to the trailer.
Elisa gets bored when Sofia falls asleep and decides to enter the creepy looking cottage that they should have considered going into before but don't, because it is a pointed roof cottage that clearly looks ominous.
Elisa does a bit of trespassing and finds dozens of pictures inside of people posing in masks. She also finds a mural of three deities: Ostro, Mastosso, and Carcagnosso. These three require sacrifices and in exchange, they will provide people with food.
Elisa calls the others too and they all think it's a bad idea to spend the night in the cottage. They go back to the trailer and later at night, hear screams.
They go inside and find a girl in the attic, wrapped inside a bundle of hay. It is then that they realise that the girl can't speak because her tongue has been cut out. They discover she's part of the ritual for the three deities that require sacrifices of eyes, tongue and ears.
They wonder who is going to have to sacrifice the rest of the body parts when there's a loud siren, red spotlights are turned on, and everyone looks out the window to see Mark being dragged by three men in ceremonial masks. Sofia wants to go help but Dr Ricardo holds her back.
The little girl takes to Elisa and hugs her while everyone peeks down the floorboards to see Mark being laid down, and an eye-gouging device being placed over him. Slowly, the pointy ends are lowered and the shot moves to a close up of a deer to spare us the cringe-worthy scene.
Mark is dragged outside and dumped while Sofia has a meltdown and blames Ricardo for holding her back. The doctor reasons with her that they were dealing with dangerous people. He makes another remark about all this being Mark's fault but no one wants to hear terrible things about a dead guy.
They spend the night and in the morning, head out to get lost in the forest. Elisa bonds with the girl who keeps a diary and has written in bold letters that her name is Chiara.
They all come to a clearing where there are several cars with broken windshields and blood splatters everywhere. They realize they aren't the only special ones the cultists are looking for to sacrifice.
They go around in circles for some reason and end up back at the cottage. To their surprise, the trailer is gone. They have no choice but to spend the night again at the cottage.
They all reveal their sad stories. Elisa talks about the unwanted pregnancy. Dr Ricardo is divorced and his ex won't allow him near his daughter. Fabrizio talks about his painful childhood bullying where everyone thought he belonged to a mafia. Fabrizio makes a joke about it; the others laugh but he doesn't. There's something in his eyes...
They all drink some beer and go off to sleep.
Elisa wakes up in the middle of the night, all alone. She opens the door and to her shock sees the cultists standing outside in masks and looking at her. On the altar, the girl is back in her cocoon made of hay, the doctor has his ears cut off, Sofia has her eyes gouged out and these pieces are placed on the giant haystack that turns out to look like a scarecrow.
Elisa is pulled inside by Fabrizio who closes the door and pretends to console her. Elisa hears voices and finds an earpiece in his ear. She picks up the beer bottle and sniffs it and knows what sleeping pills smell like. She now knows Fabrizio isn't trying to be a social media influencer but is a full-on psycho. When Elisa doesn't give in to his movies, he calls his men and has Elisa taken away just as the doctor and Sofia have their throats cut.
A CLASSIC HORROR STORY Ending Explained with Spoilers!
Elisa wakes up and finds herself in a wheelchair at the head of a table where a feast of spaghetti is taking place. She isn't served any. She tries to move her hand and finds that they are nailed to the armrest. On the other end is the mayor who keeps smirking at her.
Elisa begins to cry and the people at the table mimic and make fun of her.
The mayor comes over and explains how it is important for the ritual to take place so that her people can sit on long tables and eat spaghetti every day. She has ties with the mafia and a police car comes over and picks her up even as Elisa calls for help. The police have seen it all before and don't engage with her.
Elisa is rolled back inside and she finds herself in a room full of screens and cameras. Fabrizio speaks to her via video and explains how he wanted to kill two birds with one stone. The Mayor gets her sacrifice and feed pasta to her people, he gets to shoot a movie and send it over to Hollywood because no one in Italy cares about his brand of horror stories. Apparently Hollywood will buy anything.
Elisa is shocked to discover she's been part of a movie all along. She makes a remark about how bad bus movie is causing Fabrizio to go off in a huff. Elisa moves her hand and realizes she can free herself from the nails. She pulls her hand out, unmindful that she's going to have holes in her hands now.
She leaves the room and wanders about the area, finding more trailers and realising a shooting is taking place and she is the protagonist of that movie. She snoops inside one of the trailers and sees Fabrizio calling her names and discussing his frustration with none other than... Chiara!
The little girl isn't so innocent after all. Or dead. Or a girl. She's an actress who thinks she's too good for Fabrizio's snuff film. They get into an argument with both exchanging heated words before Chiara slaps him making him finally retreat.
Elisa is done being shocked by these plot twists and goes to get a shotgun and a mask. The first person on her list is the girl who was supposed to think of her as a mother and make her reconsider abortion.
Chiara is thrown backwards by the blast and Fabrizio realizes he's one actress down for his movie. He leaves the trailer, tries to convince Elisa to keep her part in the movie but she's had it with being an unpaid actress. She shoots him in the leg and then as he's crawling about, she uses a camera to record the next shot to his face.
Elisa leaves the area and finds an exit that leads directly into the beach. All the people stare at the blood on her but are too enthralled by the prospect of creating the next viral post to do anything about it. Literally everyone takes a video of her walking into the sea as her mother calls her. Her phone is finally working and her mother is already leaving her messages about not believing she's in trouble and she should come home and get the procedure done already.
Elisa prefers jumping into the sea than attending to her mother's messages and calls. Once she's submerged in the water, she caresses her belly.
She either wants to drown herself and her baby and leave this cruel and social media-obsessed world, or she wanted to bathe in the sea, cleanse herself of the blood that belonged to an amateur director.
Who knows?
In the end credits scene, Fabrizio's movie has been uploaded by someone...the mayor? Who knows.
The person watching the movie isn't too impressed with the short movie and not at all happy with the vision Elisa had for the movie where she gained the upper hand. The movie is given a thumbs down and that's that for Fabrizio's movie. No posthumous awards for him.
The movie, not Fabrizio's movie but A Classic Horror Story, is interesting to watch but the only issue is with the several plots and messages being thrown in. It is at first people getting lost in the forest, then a couple of occultists, then about being in a movie and then a social message about social media obsession that has corrupted everyone.
Social media equals to bad. Again, it is not the platform that corrupts mankind but the way the platform is used. Let's not forget that social media platforms had raised awareness of important issues too and helped people and connect them with others.
A Classic Horror Story could have done with a better last scene that centred on Elisa rather than show all the beachgoers simply film Elisa rather than help her just to insert a message about social media obsession.
Scare scale: 3.5/5
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