The Binding
By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Italian horror movie about evil spirits; violence, cursing.
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The Binding
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What's the Story?
In THE BINDING, happy couple Emma (Mia Maestro) and Francesco (Ricardo Samarico) travel with her daughter Sofia (Giulia Patrignani) to surprise his mother, Teresa (Mariella Lo Sardo) at the rural southern Italian mansion where he grew up. Inside these dark rooms, strange prayers are whispered. Teresa and her friend Sabrina seem grim and worried. When a tarantula bites Sofia, evil spirits are unleashed, and so is the backstory. Long ago, young Francesco fell for a local girl named Ada. He got her pregnant, but he wasn't "ready" to be a father and wanted her to abort the pregnancy. When Ada said no, Francesco turned to ancestral black magic to end the pregnancy, but bungled it. He must have read the instructions wrong, because although Ada lost the baby, she turned into someone badly in need of an exorcist. The lovely girl cracked mirrors with her gaze, growled like Darth Vader, and disappeared into the surrounding forest for many years. When happy Francesco shows up with fiancée Emma and Sofia, Ada comes out of the woodwork and "binds" Sofia to her evil self, with the goal of also binding Francesco so they can live an undead life in a nuclear family, happily ever after.
Is It Any Good?
There's nothing notable to set this apart from a wide selection of competent but otherwise banal, mid-level, demonic-possession horror films. The Binding has the something-terrible-is-about-to-happen music, and the something-terrible-is-about-to-happen facial expressions of the characters already in the know, and the something-terrible-has-just-happened screams of those just finding out, right on cue. A creaky old house sits on a field of gnarled old trees. A tarantula bites someone. Grandma has a chemistry set of weird treatments and cures. It's all the usual stuff. But none of the horror is explained in any detail, so most of the time, although the music warns us, we really don't know enough to experience the pre-anxiety of fright-to-come, the stuff that the best horror movies are made of.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about whether horror movies are scary because they seem real or because they're so obviously not real. Why do you think this?
Do you think the reason Ada "binds" Sofia is adequately explained to make tThe Binding work? Why or why not?
Why are horror movies so popular? Why do you think some people want to be scared?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming: October 2, 2020
- Cast: Ricardo Samarico , Mia Maestro , Giulia Patrignani , Mariella Lo Sardo
- Director: Domenico Emanuele de Feudis
- Inclusion Information: Latino actors
- Studio: Netflix
- Genre: Horror
- Run time: 93 minutes
- MPAA rating: NR
- Last updated: February 18, 2023
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