The Hideout (2007)

Memorable, crazy movie

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Stirring suspense and an incredibly creepy location lose out to a routine story in Pupi Avati's return to the horror genre. Lei (Laura Morante) returns to her former residence of Davenport, Iowa after 15 years in a mental institution following her husband's suicide. She intends to fulfill their dream of opening an Italian restaurant and realtor Mueller (Burt Young) finds her a place called Snake's Hall out in the country. It is the ideal place in that it has lots of space, a fully furnished kitchen and low rent. Of course, it also has a dark history and the Lei can't decide if the voices she hears at night are from someone else in the house or if she is going crazy again. This has a lot of things going for it, but ultimately fails when you figure out the plot about 30 minutes in. Sure, there might be an extra twist here and there, but you know the gist of it, especially with poorly delivered lines like, "The night of the murders there were no footprints in the snow leaving the house. What happened to the two girls who killed those people? IT IS LIKE THEY VANISHED!" Also, titling your movie the freakin' HIDEOUT might be a huge giveaway. Avati's set ups for how Lei gets info are astonishingly bad. For example, her big in on finding out about the house's history is almost randomly running over a young boy crossing the road whose mother just happens to be married to the son of the judge whose presided over the case of the murders in the house in the 1950s. The anti-climatic ending is a huge botch job too. And it is a shame because Avati captures Iowa in a unique way and builds the suspense perfectly. Random co-stars include Treat Williams (as Father Amy!?!), Yvonne Scio, Giovanni Lombardo Radice (as a wine expert with two scenes; you flew him over for that?), and Rita Tushingham (looking more and more like Anthony Perkins).

Although not nearly as acclaimed as his colleagues Dario Argento, Mario Bava or Lucio Fulci, Pupi Avati is another important and hugely influential director of the legendary Italian horror industry. His mid-seventies masterpiece "House with the Laughing Windows" almost single-handedly embodies everything the Giallo sub genre is all about and his still vastly underrated "Zeder" is probably the most unique zombie movie ever made. Personally I was enormously thrilled and excited upon hearing the news that this great filmmaker returned to his roots with the internationally produced horror-mystery-haunted house thriller "The Hideout", and even more excited when I found out the film would tour around the world's most prominent Horror Film Festivals in 2008. My initial enthusiasm cooled down a lot already by now – because what I saw was a deeply flawed and too slow-moving film – but still I'm more than happy to announce that Avati still remained a gifted storyteller and he definitely hasn't unlearned to involve his viewers into an absorbing (albeit overly convoluted) spider web of intrigues, twists and surreal elements. The film opens with an extended flashback of macabre events that took place in an Iowa orphanage during the winter of 1957. Three of the female staff members are brutally killed and two young girls, who are likely to have committed the vile crimes, mysteriously vanish without any kind of trace. More than half a century later, in present time, the still abandoned mansion is offered to the beautiful Lee to open her very own Italian restaurant. Lee was recently dismissed from a mental institution, where she received treatment for hearing "voices" after her husband committed suicide fifteen years earlier. Whilst working in the mansion, she senses a strange presence and hears eerie voices that actually differ from the ones during her mental instability. Lee rapidly becomes a notorious figure in town, as she intends to uncover the whole truth regarding the unsolved case even if it means harassing some eminent citizens with provocative questions.The plot is compelling and potentially scary enough (much scarier than the majority of Asian ghost stories, at least), but far too long and unnecessarily complex. Lee involves literally half the community in her investigation and they all have dark secrets to hide or at least suspiciously behave like they do. This soon leads to numerous sub plots and detailed character drawings that eventually lead nowhere and exclusively cause confusion instead of extra mystery. There easily could have been less dead-end red herrings and supportive characters without it affecting the plot's denouement too much, in my humble opinion. Especially since the whole outcome of the mystery is fairly predictable as long as you think logically. "The Hideout" is primarily atmospheric and stylish. Given the subject matter, there's obviously very little action and quite a large number of potentially exciting scenes end with an anticlimax. Hey, I'm all for atmospheric, story-driven suspense, but *slightly* more action footage would have been welcome. The acting performances are overall decent, but practically all the Italian cast members heavily struggle with their English accents and the English top stars (Treat Williams, Burt Young) are reduced to the supportive cast. Along with director Avati, the brilliant Italian composer Riz Ortolani returns to the genre with a superb score as well. Recommended, despite of the minor defaults.

Some of you may remember "La Casa Dalle Finestre Che Ridono", Pupi Avati's first outing in the horror genre, that took place in a truly terrifying Italian province, and with a plot reminiscent of the best early Dario Argento movies. But like Argento's recent movies, Avati's return to horror after the disappointing "Zeder" is everything but scary. Avati had a good idea (somehow reminiscent of his first horror) and a great cast including some fine American actors: yet the execution is that of a B movie. Or worse. A missed opportunity, for sure, given that the movie is beautifully photographed and had a rather strong premise. At least, however, it is an attempt on the part of Italian movie makers, always so entangled in the comedy genre, to attempt something different. It is a pity that Avati's long awaited return to horror turns out to be a rather boring and insignificant experiment.

*Il Nascondiglio Degli SPOILERS* A woman (Laura Morante) finally leaves the psychiatric hospital in which she has been for 15 years, following her husband's suicide.She resolves herself to get on with her life and open an Italian restaurant in Davenport, Iowa, and precisely in the old building called Snakes Hall, which hides a horrible secret; on Christmas Night, 1957, when the house was used as a pensionate for old women run by nuns, the Mother Superior and the lone two guests were horribly murdered, while the two Novices that were also there vanished into thin air...And as she delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, everything seems to become more and more dangerous, and not only for her...An intense, taut thriller which genially exploits the 'haunted house' theme, 'Il Nascondiglio' ('The Hideout' in the USA) is also helped by an expert director, Pupi Avati ('La Casa Dalle Finestre Che Ridono') with actors such as Laura Morante ('Un Viaggio Chiamato Amore'), Treat Williams ('Hair', 'Everwood') and many many others, and a well-written, suspenseful script.For the fans of suspense and terror, a movie not to miss!Il Nascondiglio: 9/10.