It is based on a collection of fairy tales by Italian poet Giambattista Basile, titled Pentamerone.

A necromancer suggests that if the Queen eats a sea dragon's heart cooked by a virgin, she will be with child, but this will cost a life.

The Queen eats the heart and the next day bears a son, Elias, with hair as white as the dragon.

The necromancer blames the Queen and says the youths are truly inseparable and that her violent desire can be achieved only through violence.

Dora invites Imma to the wedding and promises to take care of her, but says she cannot stay in the castle.

Finally thrown out after violating the royal couple's privacy in their bedroom, Imma finds someone willing to flay her, leaving her bloody and disfigured.

His daughter Violet tells him she wants to be married, so he offers her as a bride to whoever can guess from what beast the skin was taken, believing no one can do so.

Violet returns to the castle, where the King has grown ill, and reveals she has the head of the ogre, the husband he "chose" for her.

In an interview with Variety, director Matteo Garrone emphasized that the three tales have contemporary themes: "plastic surgery; the frenzied desire to have a child; the conflict between generations; the painful passage from adolescence to adulthood.

Although screenplays were written for other tales in the Basile collection, those filmed told the story of "a woman in three different stages of her life": youth, motherhood and advancing age.

[8] According to Matteo Garrone, he was drawn to Giambattista Basile's stories for their mixture of the real and the unreal, and because he found the themes in many of them to still be highly relevant.

[10] The film was shot entirely on location in various parts of Italy, including Naples (Royal Palace, Palace of Capodimonte and its gardens); Apulia's Castel del Monte (octagonal castle appears in the poster near Vincent Cassel), Gioia del Colle (in particular the throne room), Laterza, Mottola, Statte; Sicily's Donnafugata Castle (gothic castle, stone labyrinth and gardens) and Gole dell'Alcantara in Alcantara (mainly scenes of sea dragon); Abruzzo's Castello di Roccascalegna (appears in the poster with Castel del Monte); Tuscany's Moorish castle of Sammezzano, the towns of Sorano and Sovana (tuff caves); and Lazio (Bosco del Sasseto in Viterbo).

"[18] On Metacritic, the film has received a weighted average score of 72 out of 100 based on 24 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".