WELCOME HOME

US, 2018, 93 minutes, Colour.
Emily Ratajkowski, Aaron Paul, Riccardo Scarmacio, Francesco Aquaroli.
Directed by Gregory Ratliff.

An American thriller set in Italy and filmed in Umbria, the city of Todi and its countryside. Emily Ratajkowski has appeared in a number of thrillers like Lying and Stealing. Aaron Paul is famous for being in television series such as Bojack Horsemen, Breaking Bad, Westworld. Riccardo Scamarcio is a prominent Italian actor and has appeared in American films like To Rome with Love and John Wick 2.

This is something of a take it or leave it kind of thriller, a couple coming to Italy intending to marry but carrying some baggage of drinking, alcoholic infidelity, hoping to consolidate the relationship. They are taken by mistake to a rambling house and then to what is the equivalent of a very lavish an AirB&B.

A lot of the action is very contrived, Cassie spraining her ankle while jogging, being helped by the neighbour, Federico, who intrudes on their life, charming Cassie and repelling Bryan. There were a lot of scenes where Federico cooks, hosts parties in the town, gets Bryan drunk, sets him up with some glamorous women.

The audience, however, knows that Federico lives in the ramshackle house, but that he has set up a whole range of cameras in the mansion and arranges surveillance screens in his own house.

Ultimately, we see him as not just a voyeur but is an actual sexual predator, a clash with the couple leading to violence, including the death of the man who originally rented them the mansion. They bury the bodies – but the finale sees that Federico’s set up was for online subscribers and the couple have been filmed extensively, including the burial of the bodies.

As said, a take it or leave it kind of thriller.