The key to many Italian dishes is using only a few of the highest quality ingredients and letting them speak for themselves. If the ingredients are good enough, one doesn’t need a lot of frills or extras. This is the route director Luigi Scarpa has taken in his first short, Malum Aeterni. The film is a simple, elegant and haunting retelling of a story Scarpa heard in his hometown in Italy. In delving into choosing this project for his first short, Scarpa follows in the footsteps of the master of Italian horror, Mario Bava, and films like Operazione paura, which also treats of a folkloric ghost story that outsiders might not believe.
The photography is stunning, especially drone shots of the Southern Italian countryside and the exterior of a building the protagonist ventures into. The film is set around the town of Gioi, in the province of Salerno. Although in the English speaking world, Southern Italy is not known for its ghost stories. But Scarpa does an excellent job of evoking a tense and macabre mood from the hills and narrow streets. This mood is enhanced by all original music, full of deep foreboding, by Lorenzo Pisanello.
The story begins innocently enough. Two girls play in the street by a stone wall. Then, it’s night and Luca, an agronomist is travelling through unfamiliar territory for work at night. He sees a woman standing inexplicably on the side of the road. No houses or other people seem to be around for miles. Luca gives her his coat and offers her a ride, but the woman is strangely silent. From here, Scarpa takes his time in letting the story unfold. We’re drawn in to this mystery and its tantalizing conclusion.
The story is set in the mid90s, and we wonder how much of the story is supposed to be true. Although the story itself is straightforward, there is a certain ambiguity in the ending. Early on, there is a shot of a pack of pills in the protagonist’s car. These are pills for heart arrhythmia. Without going into too many details, this single unremarkable shot provides an alternative, more scientific, explanation for the short’s end. The more intriguing ending, of course, involves the eternal hatred and sorrow one must feel in the face of a terrible loss. It is the ending as well that won “Best Horror Moment” at the Unrestricted View Horror Film Festival, 2020.
Malum Aeterni has already been making the festival rounds, winning awards at the Hollywood Blood Horror Festival, the Andromeda Film Festival and the City of Toronto Film Festival.
Scarpa has worked in the audio visual sector since 2007, after graduating from university in Milan. He has worked on documentaries, marking films, as well as in fashion and lifestyle. He’s worked for MyVideos, Sky and Ducati among others.
This may be Scarpa’s first short, but we have much to look forward to from him in the future.