Deep Shock (2019)

Deep Shock is another highly awarded short film written and directed by Italian filmmaker Davide Melini that is a return and a celebration of the classic giallo film but with a modern look and feel. It has the added bonus of also being a horror film, with both a giallo and demonic ghost story that seem to run side-by-side but also meet up and interconnect nicely, so if you like a little bit of The Changeling and The Exorcist to go with your Deep Red, there’s a good chance this horror/giallo hybrid might be your cup of tea. At thirty minutes, it far from overstays its welcome. In fact, I felt like watching it again shortly after my first viewing. 

The film was produced in the UK and was shot together with Melini’s other short Lion using the same crew, with Deep Shock taking eight and a half days to shoot. This one has a more expanded cast than the other three short films from Melini I’ve covered, as the story is bigger with themes of grief, trauma, nightmares, mystery, murder, family curses, and religion among others, while also including the beloved black gloved killer whose identity will be revealed when the time is right. 

Just in the opening scene alone, I feel like I noticed homages to three different Argento films, which feels appropriate, before launching into its own story, starting with a string of nightmare sequences with the film’s lead heroine Sarah (Muireann Bird). 

 

Sarah is having nightmares related to the death of her grandfather (Luis Fernández de Eribe) from two years ago and the death of her sister Helen (Erica Prior) from a car crash one year ago. (I didn’t realize on the first watch, but it can be briefly seen from a newspaper clipping visual during the intro credits that the car accident occurred in 2002, which sets the film in 2003 – coincidently the year I started watching and collecting gialli). Sarah currently lives with her surviving sister, Caroline (Lorna Larkin - who reminded me a little of Barbara Cupisti). The sisters are spiritually advised and looked after by a psychologist, Marius (Francesc Pagès), and a priest, Father Jonathan (George Bracebridge). As Sarah continues to face being haunted in her nightmares by the apparitions of her dead family members, the killer eventually brutally murders someone in her home before soon coming for her.

 

The highlight murder set piece is an unapologetically brutal bathroom murder that further pays respects to Argento, particularly the films Sleepless and Deep Red. I was also reminded a little of Mario Bava’s Five Doll’s for an August Moon and Blood and Black Lace. This murder scene does leave an impression and is a worthy giallo style kill sequence. 

Much of Deep Shock does display a love for the nightmare aesthetic of the nightgowned heroine waking to roam the halls and stairways to investigate the strange sounds and hauntings alone late at night in her dark candlelit home that’s also visually beautiful in its own way. The mansion is on a precipice overlooking the sea.

 

Deep Shock was a longtime coming, as I remember when it was in pre-production back in 2013. It seems like it was delayed for a while, but I admire Melini’s commitment and determination in getting the film eventually made. I’m a bit late finally seeing it myself, but it really is a cool, atmospheric short with effective music and sound and an appealing lead in Muireann Bird. There’s a nice range in her performance, and I can say that a good deal of evil wickedness accompanies this giallo. 

© At the Mansion of Madness

 

Deep Shock is currently available to watch on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08912SXCK/ref=sr_1_1