A 1960s Italian getaway where the guests check in but the brides never check out.
In 1961, Sally Bishop and her husband vacation to Northern Italy, where they get stranded at a remote villa run by the enigmatic Vova, who presides over a household of beautiful, deathless women and their caretaker. As Sally becomes entangled in their world of seduction, violence and illusion, she begins to lose her grip on time and self as her own dark transformation unfolds.
Cinematography
1960s Italy recreated in honeyed light that curdles into dread
Acting
Olivia Cooke's descent from certainty to dissolution
Direction
Okuno's patient, female-gaze horror that weaponizes beauty itself
Director
Chloe Okuno
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Chloe Okuno previously directed 'Watcher,' another film about women being watched in unfamiliar European spaces—this feels like her thesis on voyeurism.
The 'beautiful dead women' trope has haunted cinema since 'La Belle et la Bête' and 'Vertigo'; Okuno finally puts a woman behind the camera to interrogate who's actually enjoying the view.
US
