The Holy Boy

The Holy Boy (La valle dei sorrisi, 2025) — an Italian horror-thriller you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Paolo Strippoli.

PE teacher Sergio moves to a remote Alpine village called Remis, where the residents are disturbingly serene. The reason becomes clear quickly: once a week the entire community gathers to embrace Matteo, a teenage boy believed to absorb everyone's pain and grief through physical contact. Michele Riondino plays Sergio with deliberate restraint; the harder he pushes to free Matteo from the ritual, the more clearly his own suppressed damage surfaces. Paolo Pierobon and Giulio Feltri fill the village with a thick, unhurried menace. Strippoli holds the pace of folk horror — dread accumulates in small moments — until the final act resolves in a direction the setup deliberately obscures. Stream The Holy Boy (2025) online on iFILM.