The Binding

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.