Beyond the Darkness

Francesco Koch remains under Iris's growing influence as she schemes to become the mistress of the house. Iris hires a witch to curse Francesco's fiancée Anna. The plan hinges on weakening Anna's grip on Francesco and destabilizing her future.

Anna's health deteriorates under the curse and she is rushed to a hospital. While there, she reveals a desperate wish to share a last time with Francesco before she dies. Her vulnerability heightens the tension surrounding the impending tragedy.

Francesco visits Anna and kisses her, but her heart stops beating and she dies. The death devastates Francesco and marks the start of his descent into darker acts. Iris's scheme appears to have set the stage for a chilling sequence of events.

Iris begins to assert control over Francesco's life, even feeding him in a way that blurs boundaries between caregiver and dependent. She calls him her 'little baby boy' as their relationship deepens in the aftermath of Anna's death. This moment signatureizes Iris's dominance at the villa.

At the morgue, Francesco injects preservative into Anna's body, attempting to hold onto her for his purposes. The mortician witnesses the unnatural act, marking the first intrusion of crime into the formal process. The scene foreshadows the grim rituals to come.

Anna's funeral takes place with Francesco, Anna's parents, and her twin sister Teodora in attendance. The gathering tightens family bonds but also hints at jealousy and rivalries. The tomb becomes a focal point for what comes next.

That night, Francesco drives to the cemetery to dig up Anna's body. While returning, he must stop to change a blown tire and a tourist hitchhiker enters his car. The car ride is tense, setting up the later ritual in his workshop.

Back at the villa, Francesco disembowels Anna in his workshop, biting into her heart and installing glass eyes. The hitchhiker awakens in the car and, after a struggle, Francesco chokes her to death. The two victims become part of the house's grim tableau.

Iris and Francesco position Anna's corpse on a bed as a macabre centerpiece. They chop up the hitchhiker's body and dissolve the pieces in a tub of acid, disposing of the liquid in a garden hole. Iris jokes about the smell with Francesco, and he vomits at the remembered horror of the dissolved remains.

Beside Anna's corpse, Iris approaches Francesco and masturbates him, deepening the house's sexual perversion amid murder. The moment cements Iris's grip over Francesco through shared transgression. The tone shifts from horror to a dangerous intimacy.

A jogger arrives, twists her ankle, and is invited inside for sex. Francesco reveals Anna's corpse nearby, leading to a brutal struggle in which he bites her neck and they burn the jogger's body in the furnace downstairs. The act shows Francesco's complete moral collapse.

Iris invites old relatives to dinner and publicly announces her engagement to Francesco. Francesco humiliates her in front of the guests and then leaves, deepening the hostile dynamic between them. The public display marks a turning point in Iris's ambitions.

The mortician returns to the house and discovers Anna's body, photographing the scene before leaving. The discovery adds another layer of secrecy and danger to the already volatile household. Francesco and Iris remain unaware at this point.

Teodora senses the curse as Anna's voice seems to warn her and she finds Anna's corpse in the hall. Iris and Francesco confront Teodora, leading to a violent struggle in which Iris stabs Francesco's hand and he bites off a cheek. The fight continues with Iris gouging Francesco's eye and Francesco stabbing Iris in the heart, killing her.

Francesco incinerates Anna's body and dresses Teodora to resemble Anna, aiming to bury the truth with a new semblance of order. The mortician finds Iris's corpse and Francesco mortally wounded near the furnace, then places Teodora in a coffin for burial, believing it to be Anna. In a final twist, Teodora pushes the coffin open and screams, hinting that the curse endures.