Lisa (Lauren LaVera - Terrifier 2, Clinton Road) is an American art restorer who has been contracted to head to a remote Italian village in order to restore a 15th century painting that a rich duchess is in possession of. She is told the painting recently received smoke damage and that it is essential it is restored within a fortnight as it is due to be sold at an auction. The more she works on the creepy painting, the more disturbing nightmares and hallucinations she gets, but is compelled to ignore her instincts and carry on the work for fear of her father's business being ruined by breaking the terms of the contract.
On the way to the village Lisa had befriended some botanists who had planned to camp out in the nearby forest to conduct some research. Elsewhere, things went bad for them, as on their first night camping they are all captured by an unseen person. The three, Tony (Gianluigi Galvani), Tracy (Taylor Zaudtke - The Leech) and Madison (Courage Osabohine) awaken to find themselves imprisoned in an underground cell which faces onto a large well. Their brutally sadistic mute jailor systematically begins to slaughter them, in order to feed them to a monstrous creature that dwells at the bottom of the well.
Needless to say, these two separate events are more linked than at first it might appear.
The most striking part of The Well are the nasty stomach churning special effects. Thankfully, these special effects are all practical (apart from one key scene during the finale), and they look horrific in the best possible way. Among the visual horrors are some strong almost torture porn moments of victims really being made to suffer. Limbs are hacked off, an eyeball is raked out, a rusty nail goes through a foot, someone is pinned to a door by a crossbow bolt, and some poor unfortunate even has the skin peeled off their face! The mute and mentally unstable jailor really felt like he stepped out of a Rob Zombie movie, while there are some nightmarish moments that Lisa suffers through. The creature design for the thing in the well was great, I admit it did initially remind me a bit of Gollum from The Lord of The Rings, but the more you saw of it, the more I came to appreciate how horrid it looked.
The cast were mostly great, I thought that the duchess' teenage daughter Giulia (Linda Zampaglione) was one of the weakest links, the petulant rebellious teenager came across as a bit one dimensional, making for not that compelling a character. With most the characters here, the less you know about them the better, it is only really Lisa herself who gets some character development. Special mention goes to Melanie Gaydos as Dorka, her expressive turn during the culmination of the movie was so cool to see, putting the other actors in that particular scene to slight shame.
As always with cursed painting horrors, the art needed to look effectively dark, and here the painting was ace. A slight possible plot issue might have occurred should Lisa had chosen to work on a different part of the painting than she did at the start. I found Lisa's story the less interesting of the two going on, but I enjoyed how they linked together. It did lead to an epilogue that was a little bit cheesy, the plot in general had some good moments to it, but I would be lying if I said that any of the revelations that occur were that surprising to see.
I thought The Well was really well made. The locations all looked very dusty and grimy, the special effects were gruesomely delightful, and I found myself invested in the events of the movie. Only really let down by a couple of generic characters, and an epilogue that I wasn't that sure about. The Well had its UK premiere at Frightfest in Glasgow on 9th March.
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