[Film Review] Xpiation (2018)

In the dark, twisted universe of extreme horror, filmmakers can utilize extremity through violence and brutality to explore difficult themes through the subversive and taboo. Or, they can throw a bunch of viscera and feces at a dank, dilapidated wall and just see what sticks. Italian director Domiziano Cristopharo (House of Flesh Mannequins) seems to veer toward the latter in the 2018 extreme film Xpiation.

Within the walls of a beautifully run-down warehouse, a man wakes up tied naked to a chair as he is being filmed by an elegant yet vulgar-looking woman. A man-child in cahoots with the woman begins torturing the victim, spouting nonsense and adult breast feeding while wailing and hysterically cackling. Amidst the escalating torture, there are moments where the audience is given insight into the woman’s past as a victim of sexual and physical abuse as well as betrayal and violence at the hands of her husband.

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The Woman, played by Chiara Pavoni, is a fascinating character. She seethes with hatred toward the victim, the reason being that he is Latino as far as we know, and she is sexually aroused by his torture. Unfortunately, the Boy (Emanuele Delia) is too distracting to be able to fully appreciate the complexity of the Woman, and the incessant braying in the background takes away from what could be a compelling statement made on xenophobia, abuse, and addiction. 

There are times when it appears the torture is merely a figment of the Boy’s imagination, other times where these aggressions may be a kind of visual death rattle occurring in the final moments of the films during a brutal attack on The Woman – either way, the choppiness of the narrative and the rare quiet scenes aren’t enough to provide clarity into the real focus of the story. It is nice that the victim isn’t a woman for once, but the sexual violence toward the man feels both excessive and generic, an overt struggle to shock the audience one last time before the man’s death. 

For viewers truly wanting to watch what should be branded “torture porn,” (as opposed to studio-neutered films like Hostel) this movie hits the mark. It is grimy, cruel, obscene, and explicit, capitalizing on half-baked themes of child abuse and xenophobia, while lacking a real thru line to pull the story together in any cohesive way. Not all extreme horror needs to hit a deeper meaning, but it feels like Cristopharo and writer Andrea Cavaletto (Hidden in the Woods) are attempting to say something in the bloody frames of Xpiation, but they shoehorns so many issues into the story that none are fully realized. The extremity overshadows the thematic attempts, yet the film doesn’t go so far into the extreme to truly disturb, only annoy.  

Xpiation is now available via DarkStar Films and BlackMafia Films, the new two film distribution companies specialized in horror and extreme cinema.

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