Love can mean different things when you freely use the word to show your affection, your passion, or even your achievements. While sharing what you love with others, they might not be into the same things as you are. So, what happens when others don’t partake in your interests? Nati Morti, an independent Italian horror film, has an unusual answer to this question.

Luna (Ingrid Monacelli) is a doctor who stopped practicing to keep her passion for taxidermy afloat— a hobby that has been instilled by her father since her youth. But her obsession ends up leading her to stuff more than animal corpses when one day, while she was walking through the woods looking for animal carcases to stuff, she finds on her way the fresh corpse of a woman and an unconscious man (Lorenzo Lepori). Out of curiosity, she decides to take both of them as part of her art project. Once the man awakens, he begins to realize that something is not right with the girl who has healed him and taking care of him. However, some things are starting to react between them – he develops Stockholm syndrome and she has probably found someone who understands her, or even loves her. Could it be that each complements what the other was missing?

Nati Morti A.K.A. Born Dead in English, is a slow-burning Italian horror film with a very dark and twisted nature dealing with themes such as necrophilia, thanatomania, and cannibalism— Freud would be having a fieldtrip with this plot. The opening sequence shows Luna using her talents by graphically filling and shaping a bird while being careful with every detail. This sets the tone for the whole film as it’ll escalate into body dismemberment and posing corpses for an artistic purpose. Part of it might make you squeamish if you’re devouring a bucket of popcorn— I recommend you avoid snacks for 100 minutes if you have a weak stomach.

The setting of the film is quite grim and, when it reaches a point where the passion of one of the characters is about to be demonstrated, it becomes uncontrollably dark. The way in which the characters’ psychology is approached tends to be a bit crude, but very much in the tone of each one’s profile and characteristics. Some sequences, like those that demonstrate paranoia and anger, aren’t poorly structured, but it lacks responsibility about the subject’s seriousness to avoid labeling them as a stale satire of something that has already been done.

Nati Morti, while being stuffed with a lot of psychological aspects, is far from being something like von Trier’s The House That Jack Built or Buttgereit’s Nekromantik, but it draws some undeveloped inspiration from both to set a horror love story for the main characters.

8 OUT OF 10 SHOVELS