La Casa Del Buon Ritorno Reviews

Past traumas haunting people into adulthood and leading to deranged revenge murders have always been a popular theme in Italian thrillers, and this atmospheric giallo from writer/director Beppe Cino (Intimo, Diceria dell'Untore) plays with the theme a bit more cleverly than most. Like many Italian genre entries, La Casa del Buon Ritorno recycles elements from previous films (notably Profondo Rosso, 7 Hyden Park -- La Casa Maledetta, and even the Japanese classic Onibaba), and, through the clever combination of rip-off and synthesis which has always been a hallmark of the national cinema, creates a unique, seemingly original story. Cino shows stylistic flair here, which seemed to desert him in his erotic thrillers of the time, and the cast (other than Carena) underplays nicely, bringing an added gravity to a story which might have become risible otherwise.