Morituris: Legion of the Dead (2011) (Italy)

⭐️1/2

A family outing is caught on deteriorating Super-8, a creepy uncle wanders off with his niece to play but his warning about not telling her mom and dad tells me this is a game nobody should play. Something big slaughters everyone. No. It makes no sense as to who the hell was filming this. The ugly past becomes the ugly present and a group of youthful idiots (they all look like they are running light fevers) are on their way to a secret rave in the middle of the woods. The two Romanian girls met the guys the night before and I guess whatever chemistry one has with humans akin to old, wet garbage was on full display. A long car ride that you can smell from the comfort of your living room stretches out for an opening act that just crawls on and on and on. Unfortunately, night falls, drugs are done and the three Italian dudes turn out to be serial rapists. The two girls they have with them suffer for putting their trust in the wrong guys as they drag them out to some ancient ruins located deep in the dark woods. All of this awfulness awakens a group of long-dead gladiators who begin to slaughter the unlikable Europeans after the girls manage to spill some of their tormentors blood. We cut to scenes involving the unlikable brother of one of the rapists as he jabbers on about violence and sexually tortures the prostitute he has hired. Why? Because everyone and everything is terrible. The undead ghost gladiators or whatever they are take forever to get to work taking out the scumbags (they show no mercy to the women as well) and it’s an ugly trip. I’m all for brutal ends coming to rapists but the wretched nothing sandwich we’re forced to eat to get us to the point we want to be at isn’t recommended. The team behind this were going for an old-school Italian exploitation vibe and they captured the cocaine-fueled ugliness but nothing else. It’s not insane enough to be entertaining like even the scuzziest of Italian releases and it’s so damn bleak that most of the joy we should be experiencing with the supernatural stupidity just vanishes into a void where almost all torture porn ends up. Some gnarly violence is focused on and those despicable rapists do get what’s coming to them at the dusty hands of the wrathful undead (who look like they just made their way from a steampunk convention), so I guess it has that going for it.