A Classic Horror Story

Elisa plans to hitchhike to her parents' home in Calabria to get an abortion, though she is unsure about it. She boards Fabrizio's trailer accompanied by Riccardo, a doctor, and extroverted couple Sofia and Mark. At night, a drunk Mark ends up causing an accident on the road when he dodges the corpse of a goat. Elisa wakes up in the morning to see the group doing first aid on Mark's broken leg. They realize that for some strange reason they are no longer on the road, being now in a clearing surrounded by a forest.

Despite finding a rustic cabin in the clearing, they do not enter. Fabrizio and Riccardo find three deformed scarecrows crucified with pig heads on stakes in a kind of altar. Terrified, they leave. After Elisa enters the cottage, she discovers a ritualistic mural depicting three deities: Ostro, Mastosso and Carcagnosso, which symbolize the leadership of a group that worships them in exchange for abundance and riches through human sacrifice. They decide to spend the night in the trailer. When they hear screams coming from inside the house, they discover a girl trapped inside a cocoon of hay. To everyone's horror, she has her tongue mutilated.

A siren blasts and red spotlights illuminate the cabin, where they notice Mark being dragged by three masked figures to pin him to the living room table. They see Mark have his eyes impaled by sharp skewers and his feet broken by a wooden hammer. The trio drag Mark's body outside while the rest of the group waits for dawn to escape through the forest. After finding a graveyard of abandoned cars, they realize they are not the first victims of the cult's fanatics. The girl reveals her name, Chiara, through a diary. Chiara is the only survivor of her family.

The group finds themselves walking in circles as they return to the clearing again. Night falls and the group shares their personal stories as they drink the only beer bottle left. Elisa wakes up and sees all the followers of the sect standing in front of the house with Sofia, Chiara and Riccardo as hostages on a ritualistic stage. The masked figures representing Ostro, Mastosso and Carcagnosso begin the ritual. Sofia has her eyes gouged out and Riccardo has his ears mangled. Their severed parts are placed on the gigantic scarecrow in which Chiara is trapped. Sofia and Riccardo have their throats cut before Elisa realizes that Fabrizio had put sleeping pills in their alcohol.

Elisa is knocked out. She wakes again in the morning while attending a ceremony with sect members in the presence of a mayor. As her hands are held in a wheelchair by nails, she hears that the mayor is associated with the sect. Elisa is taken into a control room, where she discovers that all the events she faced were recorded by hidden cameras and a production team overseeing everything. Fabrizio reveals that he is directing an amateur snuff movie, trying to create a classic horror story. After freeing herself, Elisa sees that she is in the camp of the film's production team.

Chiara was an actress hired by Fabrizio to perform the farce and Elisa catches the two discussing the next steps of the recording in a trailer. The mayor is revealed to be part of the mafia and the person sponsoring his film. When "Chiara" exits the vehicle, Elisa kills her. Fabrizio is hit in the leg, asks for mercy, but Elisa kills him as well, recording everything with a portable camera. She discovers the exit from the forest through a fence that limits the place as a false military area. She finds herself bloodied on the beach, being recorded by bathers on cell phones as she dives into the sea.

In a post-credits scene, a BloodFlix app user is participating in a virtual chat about Fabrizio's movie that aired with the final footage of Elisa killing him. The user evaluates the movie negatively.

• Matilda Lutz as Elisa
• Will Merrick as Mark
• Yuliia Sobol as Sofia
• Justin Korovkin
• Peppino Mazzotta as Riccardo
• Cristina Donadio as mayor
• Francesco Russo as Fabrizio
• Alida Baldari Calabria as Chiara / nameless actress
• Daniel Rose as The Masked Goat

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 50% of 10 reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.70/10. [4]

• A Classic Horror Story at IMDb