The Longest Night in the World - Evil Dolls Movies by Samuele Zàccaro is a book on dolls in horror cinema dedicated to fans and non-fans of the genre. The first part of the text is a preamble on dolls, fetishes and mannequins; the second part is a dictionary listing movies about dolls; the concluding part, on the other hand, also gives space to scarecrows in cinema. There are about 250 films collected for a total of 360 pages.
If the collective imagination has always placed in the fetishes of childhood the quintessence of tenderness and innocence, risen in hindsight to an icon of the joys of unconsciousness, art (especially film art), on the other hand, has defrauded such emblems of their magical aura to relegate them to a foreign and therefore frightening dimension, where the very primitive values of such objects become a danger especially to the adult world.
Thus, The Longest Night in the World brings to mind the beloved puppets of our youth, only to reveal to us their deviant nature, namely ours, as they are mirrors of the brutality of human beings and their consciousness of death.
With this book, therefore, Samuele Zàccaro aims not only to satiate the hunger for culture of the most affectionate fans of the horror genre, but also to delight those who, loving this strand, have not definitively cut the umbilical cord with the carefree youthfulness and the dream world linked to it.
The World's Longest Night is part of a tumultuous literary current that, at least in our country, has been devoting more and more attention to genre cinematography in recent years, lapping up its shores, however, which have never been touched until now, namely those of a strand (dolls-movie) that has been little explored but also overused, and which has seen precisely in its most famous series the cause of its relegation to the status of second-rate horror cinema and of its infilling with contaminations far removed from the genre's clichés.
This text thus represents not only an inexhaustible source of hard-to-find information but also the banner of the continuous renewal of our favorite cinema, at least as far as this subgenre is concerned.
To be mentioned, not least in importance, is the onerous responsibility for which, indirectly, this volume bears, namely that of seeing the light in a period harbinger of novelty for Italian horror cinema. Indeed, Zàccaro mentions little more than a dozen Italian films, three of which, however, were made in the last four years.
In fact, there is talk of Connections, consisting of the episodes "Hobo" e "Kokeshi" respectively directed by Daniele Misischia and Paolo Del Fiol. The latter's film in fact bears the name of the typical Japanese doll (kokeshi) that in Del Fiol's film loses its positive meaning to turn into something nefarious and cursed.
It also includes Doll Syndrome by Domiziano Cristopharo although here we are dealing with a sex doll who, however, becomes the embodiment of the protagonist's depravity, the object of a sexual pleasure that borders on an unhealthy madness.
Although it is not a horror movie the author of the book also cited Krokodyle by Stefano Bessoni, in which the main character establishes a very special relationship with his toys.
A text to consult repeatedly to close the unfocused edges of one's horror film culture but also a valuable starting point for the study of this subgenre.
The Longest Night in the World is currently on presale at the very affordable price of 18 euros until June 10, the release date that will see distribution through bookstores, websites and mail order. From June 10, the price will be 24.90 euros.
