Brief

Not even mysterious murders disperse tourists from the acclaimed Venice. But behind Saint Mark's basilica's walls, a brotherhood of priests vows to make Venice pure again.

What We Liked

This thriller ensemble combines crime, mystery, religion, fantasy, and romance in the alluring setting of Venice, Italy. Through characters that are brutally human and flawed, the mystery slowly unveils across the narrative, connecting events and leading the story to an epic ending. Beneath the plot, the book leaves the readers with the uncomfortable notion of how harmful Humanity has become to the planet.

Film: The thrilling story of The Vanishing of Venice is filled with visual gems, flawed and intriguing characters, and epic visual effects. What makes it visually different from many disaster movies is the setting of Venice, with distinctive landmarks that allow the movie to offer the audience a fresh sight of mayhem. Mature themes of sex and Evil can be fully explored in a feature film format.

TV: The Vanishing of Venice is an ensemble piece with enough story to fill many TV episodes. Set on the alluring island of Venice, Italy, it explores the good and the bad side of people with brutal honesty, creating interesting characters who can engage viewers in a serialized production. The pace at which the story develops allows it to be adapted to a season arc and the epic ending can create a mark on the TV landscape.

Key points: The setting: Venice; Alluring sex scenes; Brutally flawed characters; Thrilling plot; Epic ending.

Synopsis

A seagull watches as humans prepare the St. Mark’s square for its daily routines of tourists and flood. The bird recalls, the night before, when it witnessed the murder of a desperate man, who claimed to have paid the prostitute, by a scary shadow.

Reginald, Carol, and their daughter Crystal avoid the tourist-crowded queue to the water bus and order a water taxi; the driver is a charming young man, Michello, who flirts with both mother and daughter all the way to their hotel, pissing off Reginald. Tanya and Ryder go for a walk in Venice after a morning of passionate sex. As they walk around numerous tourists, Tanya finds a theatrical mask she likes and hoping to keep his wife happy; after a hard period of distance between them, he buys it for her. Inside a Venetian church, Simone begs Mary and Jesus for forgiveness, as guilt for sleeping with her husband’s son, leading him to die from a heart attack, takes over her. Lucrecia and Aurora help Father Rodero clean the church after a day of tourists visiting. Lucrecia remembers a night when she deceived a man, pretending to be a prostitute, and screamed for help to escape him. She assures her twin sister Aurora that the Father doesn’t know of their secret game. Tanya and Ryder appreciate a gondola ride while still trying to forget the past failure in getting pregnant and Ryder’s love affair. Lee leaves the gambling-warehouse to deserted streets; he believes the Chinese police follow him for being a traitor, so he attempts to escape to a touristy area, where he’d be safe. But steps away from a busy piazza, the pursuer kills Lee, who can see he is the devil himself. Lee’s body falls from the bridge and straight into Tanya and Ryder’s gondola, starting a commotion; scared, they decide to go to the hotel, as Stefano will deal with the police.

At a busy restaurant run by Asians, Simone is joined by Jason, a handsome Irish stranger who can’t find another table. They share a pizza, but the meal is interrupted when policemen inform the restaurateurs with bad news about their father, Lee. Jason and Simone go to a different restaurant, where they’re able to enjoy the meal. In the same restaurant, Tanya and Ryder talk about overcoming the bad experience to enjoy the rest of their vacation; Simone overhears them. Exhausted, Stefano arrives home and tries to forget the bad incident with a hot bath.

Reginald, Carol, and Crystal enjoy breakfast before the father leaves to work. From afar, Carol observes another hotel guest, Simone – who receives a text message from Michello, inviting her for a picnic. She dismisses the invite. Minutes later, Crystal receives the same invitation. She’s forced to tell her mother about it, and Carol includes herself in the previously romantic picnic invitation.

Simone walks around Venice, frustrated that Jason hasn’t called. Ryder and Tanya recover from a hangover from the night before. Reginald arrives at his meeting while Carol and Crystal enjoy their day with Michello, competing for his attention. He thinks himself lucky to have two women and take them to a private place, with second intentions. They drift past a beach, where Ryder and Tanya enjoy the sun, observed by Simone, who recognizes them from the night before, at the restaurant.

At an isolated isle, Michello takes mother and daughter to an abandoned house. He kisses the daughter, but the mother interrupts. They set up the picnic, and the mother draws him to a kiss that leads to sex, leaving Crystal to watch. In his meeting, Reg argues with his business partner, Mitch, about the deal, as Mitch points out that global warming might make Venice disappear. As the argument escalates, the two partners, who are also lovers, are turned on and decide to later leave the meeting to a more private place.

Burning up with fever, Stefano admits to his wife he didn’t tell the police about the body falling on his gondola, which led him to interrogation and being accused of withholding information on a murder. He admits to being afraid of the consequences of his mistake. On the isle, Carol reaches ecstasy with Michello.

Father Rodero watches the tourists enter the basilica with disgust; alone, he reassures that he still is His servant; his head is inundated by orders to kill them all, overwhelming him. In the council meeting, Jason finishes his presentation about how to save Venice from disappearing. Reg and Mitch return to join the group after their heated talk, and the mayor asks if they all agree to move forward with the deal; Mitch disagrees but eventually is convinced by Reg to go with the group.

Carol rejoices her experience with Michello alone in the forest, thinking about the experience her daughter is now having with him. She gets a message from Reg saying he’ll celebrate the success of the meeting with Mitch. Simone is happily surprised by a call from Jason. Back at the hotel, Tanya and Ryder try to forget the afternoon they spent talking to the police, who summoned them as witnesses of Lee’s murder. As the couple makes amends, they feel a kick on Tanya’s tummy.

Te, Lee’s son, recruits a group of men to unite and try to find whoever is targeting to kill the Chinese. At the basilica, Father Rodero curses and demands sex from Aurora and Lucrecia, in front of all the priests, who fail to stop him and beg for him to let them clean him from the Devil. He denies it, and the twins indulge his request for sex. Stefano and the other skippers drift their tourist-filled gondolas through the usual route, but when under the Bridge of Sighs, something attacks the passengers, leaving them scared and drenched in blood. They all call the police. Back at his restaurant, Te looks empowered, holding a pistol.

Jason and Simone meet for a date in a fancy restaurant, but Jason admits to being married, and the two agree to dine as friends, though Simone’s heartaches. When Stefano is about to leave for work in the morning, his daughter says her brother, Lucca, has not returned home that night. Stefano doesn’t worry, as he assumes his son found a girlfriend. In the basilica, the priests go about their mornings, fearing Father Rodero’s mood; he still hears voices and vows to kill all tourists to get rid of whatever has taken over him. Suddenly, a teenage boy escapes from inside the rooms. It’s Lucca, and he’s able to leave the basilica and rush onto the streets, as he remembers the night when he joined the brotherhood by helping Rodero kill an American man named Mitch, and the killing aroused him.

At Lee’s funeral, his wife and son mourn, and his daughters feel relief, for he used to abuse them. His oldest daughter thanks the Christian God for answering her prayers. Reg wakes up alone in a run-down hotel, covered in blood and semen. Outside, he hears a commotion: the police have found a body. He recognizes the mask on the body as the same the men (from Lucca’s Brotherhood) wore the night before. Simone wakes up alone in her hotel and realizes Jason isn’t there; she pleasures herself, rejoicing at the thought she was able to care for a man and not make him a victim of her sexual needs, but her mind is flooded with guilt, leading her to cry and pray.

Reginald returns to his hotel to find Michello in the bathroom. Pissed, he kicks him out, as both Carol and Crystal ask him to accept Michello as Crystal’s boyfriend. Reg has memories of the night before when he was drugged. Simone sees Tanya and Ryder also in line to visit St. Mark’s basilica; all the tourists startle upon the sight of a plane that struggles to keep a stable flight in the sky. Inside the plane, Jason and the rest of the passengers fear for their lives. He feels guilty for deceiving his wife and prays to get home safe to his family; the pilot regains control of the plane.

A storm pours outside, and Simone finally enters the basilica. Trying to escape the crowd, she goes to a restricted area and is cursed by a priest. A commotion begins inside, as thunder and rain shake the basilica’s foundations. Ryder and Tanya look around the church, but it’s too full of people to be enjoyable. Father Rodero gives them and the other tourists a fearful expression, and the couple is startled by his mean demeanor. A bigger commotion begins, the couple escapes to the second floor, and the basilica’s doors are shut, entrapping people inside; the commotion becomes dangerous.

Aurora and Lucrecia escape the madness and join Father Rodero, who watches as chaos occurs inside and outside the basilica. The storm soaks people outside, who attempt to get in, while people inside try to get out. Father Rodero was the one who ordered the doors to close. Simone is surprised by the confusion and doesn’t realize how serious it is. Ryder and Tanya stay on the second floor, protected from the body of people pushing and pulling. Father Rodero screams loudly, cursing everyone, and filled with guilt, Father Guillio opens the door. People rush inside, trampling over Guillio, who ends up dead. People on the second floor begin to see a mist and feel the statues move.

As mayhem takes place in the basilica, tourists and priests die. Outside, the storm fills the piazza, and the water floods the basilica. Simone prays to survive, as the priests acknowledge the mayhem is Rodero’s doing. He curses the tourists as the basilica statues come to life and kill everyone, including Tanya, Ryder, and their unborn baby. Simone is dragged away by one of the horse statues that came to life.

Reg, Carol, and Crystal change their course as they see the chaos at St. Mark’s piazza. As Reg tries to escape the haunting memories of the night before, Crystal asks Michello for a ride. Without another solution, Reg helps his family get to the terminal Michello is at. Merchants close their stalls; skippers finish their days, all seeking to sit out the storm at the safety of their places. Lucca arrives home; it’s empty. He’s exhausted and conflicted about his participation in the murder, as it excited him until Mitch groped his penis, making him feel vulnerable. He remembers when Father Rodero recruited the Brotherhood: young boys determined and strong enough to restore Venice to its glory, without tourists and Chinese immigrants.

Incredulous, Stefano watches as the whole city of Venice succumbs to the fury of Evil. The horses from the basilica smash tourists by the dozens, and panicked people run, drown, and float dead on the canals. He calls his wife, tells her to get ready to leave Venice and wait for him. Then, he sees a mysterious mist around the city. Inside the basilica, Father Rodero damn Lucrecia and Aurora to the fury of Hell; they can’t recognize Rodero anymore, as he’s been completely overcome by the Evil forces. It sends them to Hell.

Carol, Reg, and Crystal find Michello and rush to board his boat before a mob of angry, desperate tourists gets to them. Stefano’s wife and daughter arrive home, both worried about Stefano. Inside, they find Lucca. Not long after, the house’s ceiling collapses. Stefano sees lightning kill pigeons that fall from the sky onto his head. Struggling to cross the canal, he and other skippers cannot escape the fury of the water, and they all die. Lee’s family is on their way to his funeral when their boat sinks due to the tsunami that takes over Venice. Father Rodero rejoices at the destruction of the basilica until the Evil entity releases his body and, human again, he falls to his death, with no witnesses left to see. Michello’s boat appears to escape the mayhem, but as a gigantic wave swallows Venice, their two boats crash onto one another and explode. Venice disappears. In the year 3000, the lost city of Venezia reappears, reborn and pure.

About The Author

Dianah Chorlton was born in Adelaide, South Australia. She now lives with her English-born husband, Robert, along the picturesque coastline of Sydney’s Northern Beaches. Practising as a Natural Therapist, she conducts her healing treatments from home to a faithful following of clientele.