Menino Malvado

Cruel Peter: Sicily 1908, Peter is a nasty little git, his rich English mother lets him get away with anything. He slashes a servant girl's face with a razor, tortures animals, buries the dog of tenant boys alive. An incipient serial killer but one of the boys strikes back and buries Peter alive. An Earthquake strikes Messina, thousands are dead, Peter is forgotten about. The present day, a widowed English archaeologist, Norman and his troubled teen daughter Liz arrive in the city. She has interest in occult, has a crystal ball., more like an ouija board and seeks to contact her mother. Norman is excavating a Gothic cemetery when he unearths a box with items belonging to Peter. Liz has visions of Peter, while she sleeps the crystal ball whirls of its own accord. Instead of her mum she summons up cruel peter! We get poltergeist effects, personality changes, hands emerging from a sink, ghosts, local peasant superstitions, a scary caretaker, witchcraft, necromancy. The Gothic cemetery is quite impressive, especially the creepy crypts.and great cinematography, mostly in dark or shadows.A slow paced and moody Gothic tale which doesn't quite achieve everything it apparently sets out to but certainly a passable horror film. 6/10. On Netflix

It's a slow burn but it gets inside your head. Moody settings. Good timing too. Lots of flashbacks and reverse storylines that pops out just when you're about to scratch your head and wonder why or what.

I would have liked to talk about the plot more but the screen is almost completely black most of the time. It's barely watchable.

I love the idea behind the plot, the characters were interesting and the Italian setting was refreshing, but It was literally impossible to discern what was happening on screen most of the times.

A film that starts of well, with a fairly long period before things start happening, but then it just goes off the rails. It's as if the scriptwriter wanted to be lazy and use all the regular horror tropes, but then tried to make it appear different.

The result is a mish-mash of things, and the ending just makes no sense.

There is too much reliance on characters doing or saying things, that no normal person in the situation would do or say, in order to set up events. This always strikes me as lazy story-telling.

I'm giving it 5 for being reasonably well-acted and for at least trying to make use of the locations and sets.

Some nice settings and visuals (manor house, old cemetary, Italian landscape) and a decent production make this one an okay movie - if your are interested in haunted house and evil spirit stories. The weak side of Cruel Peter is the story - more or less your typical story without any great surprises. Anyway, for the decent production and the good actors I rate this one a well deserved 5. Recommended for the hardcore lover of the genre who is in great need for a little snack.