Mimì Prince of Darkness Brando De Sica's Debut Screening at the Italian Cultural Institute in London

Last week, I was grateful enough to attend a screening of Brando De Sica’s horror film Mimì - Prince of Darkness, as part of a series organised by the Italian Cultural Institute in London. Playing as the inaugural film in the programme Italian Independent Cinema: Screens in Freedom, it was followed by a Q&A hosted by the Editor-in-Chief of this very publication, Rita Di Santo, which prompted many lively responses from the capacity audience.

One of the most memorable directly confronted Brando De Sica on why the film had to be so violent. Whilst it’s rare for an audience member to offer such a candid remark amidst the usually respectful atmosphere of these London events, it does get to the heart of the matter: Mimì - Prince of Darkness is at times bracingly violent, yet this attribute - combined with its sense of style and verve - accounts for what makes it so striking. Upon premiering out of competition at the Locarno Film Festival in 2023, critics spoke of its particular young adult appeal, but its full-on imagery and scares help it stand alongside the most aggressive multiplex and indie horror.

Set in a mainly nocturnal modern Naples, Domenico Cuomo is the titular Mimì, a naive if sincere young man employed as a pizza chef. With his parentage unknown, he was brought up in an a convent orphanage, where he faced intense bullying for the unusually disfigured shape of his feet, until he was saved by the benevolent Nando (Mimmo Borrelli), who put him to work in the pizzeria.

The first act introduces the points of an unlikely love triangle Mimì finds himself in. As the pizzeria is closing late one night, the local up-and-coming gangster Bastianello (Giuseppe Brunetti) and his cronies barge in, accosting Carmilla (Sara Ciocca), an older teenager dressed in fashionable goth stylings, as Mimì watches on, unable to intervene. Carmilla and Mimì later meet up begin nurturing a friendship, as the latter outlandishly claims she’s descended from an ancient stock of vampires. This leads to the gullible Mimì belatedly educating himself on vampire lore, his connection with his crush turning into a more disturbing obsession.

The director, a descendent of the neorealist great Vittorio De Sica, shows a facility for building tension, cavernous set design, and suggestive colour schemes on a spectrum of dark primary colours to pitch black. Mimì is a highly sympathetic protagonist until his behaviours gradually shift beyond redemption, so much in the film’s climax we’re disturbed to have identified with him in the first place. Although jarring, this feels a very intentional provocation by De Sica, ensuring we absorb the final images in a state of nerve-shredding unease. After all, as he shot back to the skeptical questioner on that chilly London night, “it is a horror film.”