Dante's Inferno Becomes Horror Film From 'Invoking Yell' Director

Skincrawl Studios has released a first look at "The Divine Comedy," a supernatural horror feature from Chilean director Patricio Valladares that reimagines Dante Alighieri's 14th-century poem as a modern descent into Hell. The Irish genre specialist handles worldwide sales on the film, which has just wrapped principal photography.

The Dublin-based company will pitch the title to international buyers at next month's American Film Market, then again in February at the Berlinale's European Film Market. Producer Corrado Camilla laid out the schedule plainly: "We'll have a teaser-trailer ready for AFM and plan to have the film screened at the Berlin film market in February. From then on it's doing as many festivals as possible. We're fully aware that this is not your average horror movie, so we plan to reach out to all sorts of different markets, and see how they react."

Who made the film?

"The Divine Comedy" is a co-production between Italy's Anxur Films and Skincrawl Limited. Alessandro Gatto produces for Anxur; Camilla and screenwriter Loris Curci produce for Skincrawl. Valladares directs from Curci's screenplay. The cast is led by Christopher Rygh ("Vikings: Valhalla"), with Matthew Metcalfe, Tilda Metsola and Fadhillah Othman.

The plot follows Dante, a grieving writer who enters the realm of the dead to retrieve his deceased wife, Beatrice. A former priest named Virgil guides him through circles of Hell populated by supernatural entities and manifestations of guilt, desire and suffering.

How did the screenwriter adapt a 700-year-old poem?

Curci told Variety the adaptation narrowed its scope deliberately. "The challenge here was to turn Dante's 'Inferno' into a visual experience," he said. "We took into account only the Hell segment of 'The Divine Comedy.' Of course, given the context and the complexity of the epic poem, we tried to focus mainly on the relationship between Dante and Virgil, and their voyage to the very bowels of the Inferno. We also took the liberty of giving Beatrice a different, more dramatic role."

Curci also mined classical mythology for his screenplay, following Dante's own practice. "Dante populated his realms of Hell and Purgatory with figures, monsters and moral frameworks borrowed directly from classical Greek and Roman myths. He borrowed extensively from them, and then so did I," Curci said. "But our 'Divine Comedy' is after all a modern fantasy-horror film. It's definitely the most ambitious film we've worked on at Skincrawl, albeit it's small budget."

Where does Valladares fit in?

The film continues Valladares' run of international genre productions. His 2023 found-footage feature "Invoking Yell," written with regular collaborator Barry Keating, streams on AMC Networks' horror service Shudder in multiple territories. His latest, "Invoking Scream," premiered at FrightFest in London and reaches Chilean theaters next year. Earlier credits include "Nightworld" (2017), which Curci worked on, and "Hidden in the Woods," starring Michael Biehn of "Terminator" and "Tombstone."

Curci's own Skincrawl résumé is growing. He co-wrote the recent thriller "The Sarajevo Murders" with Keating and directed the company's upcoming "Island of the Minotaur," now in post-production.

Skincrawl's slate signals a company betting on literary and mythological source material for low-budget horror. The AFM and EFM market screenings will show whether buyers share that conviction.