Benito Mussolini's fascist Italy, 1944. In the northern Italian Republic of Salò, a Nazi-controlled puppet state, the town's four most wealthy, powerful, and decadent members--The Duke, The Bishop, The Magistrate, and The President--herd the finest specimens of young men and women into a palatial villa. Having established a set of authoritarian rules for their captives, the perverted dignitaries then plunge them into a hideous, three-part abyss of systematic degradation and torture inspired by
Dante Alighieri's Inferno--the first part of the Divine Comedy. And as the sadists indulge in their most despicable vices and depraved erotic fantasies, only death can save the doomed prisoners.
—Nick Riganas