Subtext...
A few things I noticed about this film. To me it’s about sex and loss of innocence, and eventually death. The opening scene explains it all in a way. We see 2 girls having a sexual experience, one of them feels guilty about it. At first she says she saw ‘lights, like they were burned into me retina’, the other one says she saw it too. Sex is a pleasurable, natural, cosmic experience. But then she has guilt, saying how she imagines herself in her old schoolgirl uniform, wondering what her old priest would think. Then there’s a knock at the door, here comes the devil.
On the surface it’s a paranormal horror film, but under the surface it’s a symbolic dream about life. Her lover goes downstairs where she is attacked by a serial killer, cutting off her fingers. Here’s what I think…. it was the OTHER girl who attacked her out of guilt, not some random killer. Later in the film we meet the guy who works at the gas station, who seems to know everything. It was HIS daughter who was attacked in that scene, which took place 20 years before the film starts (the DVD commentary supports this). During his recollection of the attack, he says ‘it was not a man’…. at the very same time, there are 2 subliminal cuts of the other girl’s face over the killer face, looking all demonic.
Another interesting fact here is that the house where this attack took place is the same house that the babysitter Marcia lives in. Same doorway, same phone that rings. Marcia watched the kids and had the same cosmic lights experience that the 2 lovers had in the first scene, and describes a feeling like the devil was standing on her chest, much like the painting ‘The Nightmare’ by Henry Fuseli. She shows her bruises on her chest. I took this as she was raped in the past.
Sex is a natural part of life. It’s what CREATES life. It’s also what creates guilt, and from that… evil. Things like incest (the 2 siblings in the film), rape in the case of Marcia, and murder in the case of the parents also stem from negative feeling toward something that nature intends us to do. We are first introduced to the siblings in the film after a shot of 2 birds sitting on the mountain, cut to the family sitting there, just like the birds.
The kids go off on a ‘hike’, really to have sex, with their creepy holding of hands as they walk off. The parents stay back and recall their first sexual experiences in the dirtiest of ways. These are natural feelings, we are powerless against them, almost like we are possessed, and in the process 2 sides of ourselves emerge, the saint and the sinner, here comes the devil.
The kids go into the cave, which to me represents the place where you stop being a kid and loose your innocence. It even looks like a vagina. The mom gives her daughter her watch so she can keep time, representing parental protection, but the watch breaks at 12:30, right about the time that the earthquake happens. This watch is broken for the rest of the film, as parental protection only lasts so long. The kids are found, all is great, but they are not the same. They become defiant, cut school…. the devil is driving them now, and not very well, as seen by the horrible driving lesson.
The parents suspect Lucio may have molested them, and in a psychotic rage, they kill him. Interesting thing about Lucio, he was actually trying to protect the kids by putting candles by the cave, representing superstition and religion. Also, he’s a homage to Lucio Fulci, that explains his over the top gory death (thanks DVD commentary)
In the end, when the mom discovers the real bodies in the cave (the innocent versions of them), the dad shoots her, (thinking she killed them, or unable to deal with the loss of his babies) but then they are seen driving away in the same manner that his son was during the lesson. The devil has got them too. They were once innocent kids, now they are empty shells being driven by the devil
I have some theory that the guy at the gas station is actually the devil, he seems to know a lot, not to mention he was the father of the girl murdered in the first scene. The serial killer was ‘never seen again’, maybe he’s hiding in plain sight. They look similar in the face, but in present day he’s bald and has a beard. Oh, and in the IMDB credits there’s a credit for ‘gas station worker’ but none for ’serial killer’, making me thing they were one in the same. This is just a theory though, I haven’t fleshed it out.
Anyway, that’s my long winded view of this film. I love the 70’s Italian influence, with the zooms and groovy music. What did you think of the film?