Director Donato Carrisi will have you following the red-eyed rabbit down a mysterious and murky hole in his crime thriller Into the Labyrinth (2019). This Italian thriller is stinking of red herrings, but in a good way via many twists and turns. Though they do seem to pile up, with the last herring the most confusing, Into the Labyrinth is a feast of mysterious intrigue and should be enjoyable for lovers of whodunnit crime thrillers doused in horror.

A young girl named Samantha Andretti (Valentina Bellè) is abducted while on her way to school one morning and held in a labyrinth. 15 years later she finds herself in a hospital with only bits and pieces of memory from her captivity. A man by the name of Doctor Green (Dustin Hoffman) introduces himself as a criminal profiler, one who is there to help Samantha decipher the sick game that her abductor kept her housed within. Meanwhile, a Private Investigator named Bruno Genko (Toni Servillo) learns of a figure described as a rabbit with red heart-shaped eyes having terrorized others in the city, and chases this lead down a hole of mystery, murder, and mind games.

I’m very grateful for the surprisingly thoughtful dialogue, acting, and character development of Into the Labyrinth because at over two hours long things would have been unbearable if Carrisi had dropped the ball on any of these aspects. Though it did seem to require of me to follow one minor leap in logic having Samantha conversing in English with Dr. Green when everyone else spoke in Italian, making it seem like Dustin Hoffman was a bit shoe-horned into the role because of him being a big American-name actor. He was good but not great in this movie — every conversation between him and Samantha increasingly felt like a game of cat and mouse, but he wasn’t given very much to bite into. Valentina Bellè’s performance as Samantha especially stood out though, stealing every scene and mesmerizing with her dedicated portrayal of a tortured and broken mental case.

The music score for Into the Labyrinth was enjoyable as well, with nice, dramatic orchestral interludes reminiscent of sounds out of The Godfather, or from some older horror movies. Into the Labyrinth had a certain surreal feel to it, often I felt like the settings surrounding Genko and Samantha did not feel like they were on the same plane, or at least, felt dreamy, especially as the movie dragged on into more of the psychological aspects of the story. The movie also has a dual narrative, as Genko and Samantha are never in the same place and it felt like the movie was a culmination of two different movies due to the two different, but parallel storylines.

With its layered plot that changes direction on leading the audience to the killer multiple times, Into the Labyrinth will likely merit a re-watch — it took a lot of rewinding to catch the sometimes indiscernible dialogue and a second watch to grasp its narrative deceptions. Is it worth a re-watch at over 2 hours long? I would say yes, as it is a wholly entertaining movie, it is often beautifully shot as far as cinematography and coloring, and each actor made their character feel like a real and believable person. Though I have seen evil bunny rabbits in psychological thrillers before — i.e. Donnie Darko (2001) — this unconventionally structured Italian thriller is a unique watch and it is due for DVD/streaming release to U.S. audiences on November 24th, 2020.

6.5 out of 10