Netflix has been really going for it it lately with its range of international horror films, but new offering A Classic Horror Story looks like it’s trying to be one of its most ambitious yet.
As a genre, horror can be pretty self aware, relying on often used tropes (let’s go into the creepy abandoned house!) in a self-referential way. It can either turn out as satire or a clever analysis of horror in general, depending on which vibe the film is going for.
A Classic Horror Story looks like its aiming to be the latter. Billed by the streaming platform as “Midsommar meets Texas Chain Saw Massacre”, the Italian film takes a variety of instantly recognisable horror tropes and repackages them into a movie which, despite its title, looks like it’s going to be anything but typical.
The film starts with a group of people who get stranded after their campervan breaks down on a trip in Southern Italy (so far, so typical). Trying to figure out where to go next, they get lost and stumble across a creepy-looking cabin in the woods, when one of them jokes: “Why hasn’t anybody said it yet? This is a classic horror movie.”
From there, the trailer runs through scenes that look like they’ve been lifted from iconic horror films – torture devices that look like something found in Saw, a cult-like gathering similar to Midsommar, wooden masks similar to Friday the 13th villain Jason Vorhees (we could go on…) – as the characters become aware that everything is not what it seems.
The official synopsis reads: “A camper. A car crash. An abandoned house. Children’s music in the background. Think you’ve seen it before? Look again.”
The trailer doesn’t give too much of the actual plot away, it does promise that the film’s meta-universe is not what it appears to be on the surface. “You feel like you’ve already seen it,” it says in bloody handwriting. “Take a closer look.”
The film is directed by Roberto De Feo and Paolo Strippoli and stars Matilda Lutz, Will Merrick, Yuliia Sobol, Justin Korovkin and more. It’ll be available for streaming on Netflix from 14 July.
You can watch the gory trailer below.