21/05/2021 - Ascanio Malgarini and Christian Bisceglia direct a well-made gothic fairy-tale set in Messina on the eve of the devastating 1908 earthquake
film profile], a well-made gothic fairy-tale unfolding in Messina, Sicily, during two distinct periods: the time just before the devastating earthquake of 1908 which reduced the town to rubble, and the present day, which sees the lost souls who were buried under the town’s ruins over a century earlier returning to avenge their deaths, not least the titular Cruel Peter, a well-groomed and smartly dressed “devil child” who nurtures an unbridled passion for pocket knives.
(The article continues below - Commercial information)
We’re in Messina in 1908. Peter Hoffmann (
Aran Bevan) is a rich and spoiled 13-year-old boy with a particularly sadistic nature. He tortures animals, slashes little girls and humiliates the servants while enjoying the immunity granted to him by his mother, who has become especially overprotective ever since Peter lost his father. After he kills a dog belonging to the gardener’s son (