I remember prom. It was senior year, 1985, northern Michigan. I wore a white tux and went with a friend of mine out to dinner, some nice dancing, and that was pretty much it. Nothing spectacular and nothing dramatic. Just a plain old good time. She didn't kidnap me and inject bleach into my voice box or anything. I'm pretty sure of that.
The prom featured in Sean Byrne's 2009 horror trip The Loved Onesis a far cry from the one I remember, and a far cry from those cheesy 80's coming-of-age raunchy teen comedy versions of proms. This one is disturbing, insane, and white-knuckle-inducing. Although it was released in Australia in 2009, it's finally been distributed on our shores, and it was well worth the wait. Sure, the high school prom has figured heavily into horror over the years, in films like Prom Night and Carrie. But The Loved Ones turns it on its ear somewhat and gives the setting a fresh new take.
Brent (Xavier Samuel) is having a rough year, to say the least. His father died in a horrible accident when Brent swerved to avoid hitting someone in the middle of the road (an incident that is more important than you think). His mother blames him - in a roundabout way - and spends each day in a depressed haze. The only bright spot, other than his goofy best friend, is his girlfriend, Holly (Victoria Thaine). She's good to him, and truly loves the morose kid. Brent seems popular, because he's also asked to prom by shy, demure Lola (Robin McLeavy). He politely declines, and she seems hurt. While on a walk and a climb, Brent just wants to clear his muddled mind. It's here that his world changes...well, significantly.
Waking up from a chloroform nap, Brent finds himself tied to a chair while Lola and her deranged, wild-eyed father recreate their own twisted prom. And believe me, "twisted" is a severe, severe understatement. Turns out Lola isn't so demure after all. She wants a perfect prom, and she will do anything to get it. Her father, in turn, will do anything for his baby girl. Brent, muted by a shot of bleach to the voice box, is thrust deeper and deeper into a depraved, sadistic night that involves sharp objects, power tools, and pure desperation.
I'm not going to go any further with the synopsis because it's really something you'd need to see for yourself. It's a high-energy downward spiral with incredible acting, a crackling script, and directing that keeps everything going non-stop start to finish. Byrne has set the bar high for himself, and the acting from Samuel, McLeavy, and John Brumpton (the father) is top-of-the-line. I don't recall ever cheering so much for a protagonist to escape his predicament like I did for Samuel's Brent. I mean, escape becomes increasingly impossible as Lola and her pops get increasingly brutal. McLeavy plays crazy so well, and Samuel does an excellent job with no words for the entire ordeal.
The Loved Ones had a lot of build-up amongst the horror community, and it's well-deserved. If you have the stomach for it, it's a film any horror fan shouldn't miss and one of the better ones I've had the pleasure to review this year. And, oh, the music...chilling...brrr....
So, enjoy your prom, and just be glad you didn't have to spend it with Lola and her family. You'd have to hide the bleach and the power drill...
Revenge thrillers are a slippery slope. If you're making one where the protagonist is simply killing others without much backstory or sympathetic motive, then what separates that character from the serial killers and deranged crazies that serve as antagonists? Ah, and there's the rub. The very question of a good revenge thriller is just that: what separates our hero from the villains he or she is hunting? In order to remain human or on the "side of the angels," the hero has to have something rooting him or her in reality, something that reminds them that they may be on the path to being monsters, but will never become one. We hope.
One revenge thriller that really set the bar high was Korea's entry, I Saw The Devil, which I reviewed a couple months ago. That was an amazing character study on both sides of the fence. But ranking really high was another great character study in vengeance and violence from Australia, The Horseman. A relatively quiet film - except for moments of intense screaming, crying, and yelling - it showcases the considerable acting talents of Peter Marshall as the distraught, relentless father-in-mourning as well as the fantastic directing of writer-producer-director Steven Kastrissios.
Christian (Marshall) is a father mourning the loss of his daughter from an overdose of heroin, among several other drugs. When he discovers that she participated in a low-rent porno film and was left for dead by someone involved, he takes it upon himself to hunt down each and every person connected with the film. Collecting his tools and hopping in his van, he takes out his vengeance on a variety of people, some who are sorry and some who are not. Along the way, he meets a young, pregnant runaway, Alice (Caroline Marohasy) who definitely reminds him of his daughter. Up until then, the guy was a juggernaut with a tool box, but Alice brings him back down to earth, for a short time anyway. Christian soon discovers that not all of the men are what they seemed, or what he believed. He also uncovers a web much darker than he ever could have imagined. Where it looked like Christian was the force of nature, and the scummy filmmakers were the weak villains, tables turn horribly on the father and he has to reach deep down to not only exact vengeance, but survive.
The film is impeccably-paced, with stretches of introspective calm peppered with growing swells of brutal violence. Marshall is utterly tremendous as Christian, a man we can identify with as he tracks down those responsible for his daughter's death, despite the fact that she sought them out to make a quick buck. He chooses to see past that, to the little girl he once protected and cared for in his own home. His role as protector shifts to Alice, played wonderfully by Marohasy. Marshall brings moments of intense compassion, violence, determination, and even confusion to the role of Christian. He's tough and wants revenge, yet desires to just be a father again. When he's weeping at the end of the film, you see what he's feeling, you see why he's crying. All those pent-up emotions finally break the gate, and it's stunning.
Take a chance on The Horseman if you want a revenge thriller that's a cut - or crowbar smash - above others. Fine acting, great directing, a haunting score, and the question of just how far would you go?
Until next time, enjoy the official website and this trailer:
When it comes to horror movies, I've been around the block a few times. Seen some wild movies in my many years on this zombie-infested Earth. As I got older, I got wiser to the ways of filmmaking so that the old trope "it's just a movie" became ingrained.
The last movie to do that may have been my first-ever viewing of The Exorcist back in '88, and I was a semi-mature adult then. I'm still a semi-mature adult now, and I'm telling you, Lake Mungo gave me the heebie-jeebies.
I'm going to break tradition here and change up the recap a little. You know I like to run down the movie, even throw in some spoilers just to whet your appetite, but I want to take a different approach to this one. There's something special about Lake Mungo.
This Australian offering, written and directed by Joel Anderson, is filmed documentary style and has all the trappings of a serious documentary about a young girl's death: news reports, emergency call recordings, interviews with friends and family, and barely-there ambient music. This movie not only looks like a documentary, it feels like one.
Right away, we learn that 16-year-old Alice Palmer (Talia Zucker) has gone missing and presumed dead while swimming with her family. They hold out hope that she's still alive somehow, but those hopes are dashed when her body is discovered downriver. The Palmer family - father Russell (David Pledger), mother June (Rosie Traynor), and brother Mathew (Martin Sharpe) - must now deal with the death of their sweet Alice. By all accounts, she was bright, popular, and sweet, and it's true, the poor girl did not deserve this death.
A few days after her funeral, strange things begin happening, according to Russell. Unexplained sounds, realistic dreams, and doors closing on their own are some of those strange things. The family's dealing with stress of their own, as June relates she's not sleeping and entering other people's houses to "be inside someone else's life for a while."
Mathew is an amateur photographer, and captures an image of what he is sure is Alice in the backyard. Another man surveying the river levels captures what appears to be Alice in a photograph. Later, when Mathew sets up a video camera, he captures an image of someone coming out of Alice's room. Cue those sets of chills. June becomes convinced Alice is a ghost in their home and contacts a psychic, Ray Kemeny (Steve Jodrell). She brings him to the rest of the family in order to hold a seance, which Mathew videotapes. Sure enough, another image appears and yeah, the chills come right back.
When a couple out videotaping at the same river captures an image of someone there, the film takes an interesting turn. Things turn out to be not quite as they seemed, and it goes much deeper than that. But wait, the movie's not entirely halfway over yet. Surely, there's more to come.
Oh, yes. Much more. So much more is to be revealed about Alice. When the movie takes the aforementioned turn, we know very little about the young woman, other than that she was a vibrant, sweetheart of a girl whom everyone loved. Yes, there is so much more to be learned about Alice, and it is sad and it is heartbreaking.
"Alice kept secrets. She kept the fact she kept secrets a secret."
Not only do Alice's heartbreaking secrets come to light, it turns out she'd been following a path for a period of time leading up to her death. As her family uncovers clues, they're led to Lake Mungo, a prehistoric lake turned sand dune, where Alice had recently gone with her class for an overnight outing. What is revealed on cell phone footage is not only telling, but downright chilling. And I mean right to the bone. You might find your breath hitching, as if you're trying to wake up from your own sudden nightmare. It will hit you. Trust me on this.
Lake Mungo leaves you with a sense of immense sadness after the creepiness of the climactic scene fades (or does it really fade?). It's the story of a family reeling from grief, then punched in the gut by the secrets that Alice harbored. They strengthen their own bonds over this series of devastating emotions, but Alice is still dead. By the end of the movie, you feel the sadness of her life as well as her death. You might even want very much for her to have lived somehow so she could have grown past what we discover about her.
With a faux documentary, one of the traps is the actors are just that: actors. There is a difference between those trained to be in front of a camera and those that might be hurriedly coached. Recently, I caught a bit of The Fourth Kind. The "real" footage in that movie looks pretty good. In fact, it looks too good. It's framed too well and the nuances of the performances are too obvious. You can tell it's acted. In Lake Mungo, don't be surprised if you want to check around to see if this really is a documentary about the Palmer family. The acting is so natural, and they seem like real people you may actually know.
I was warned by my fellow blogger The Jaded Viewer that I might turn the lights on during this movie. I thought, "sure, that'll happen." It did. And I'm not ashamed to admit it, either. This movie was creepy for all the right reasons. It gets under your skin and into your head. You won't forget it. For now, enjoy the trailer:
OK, dear survivors, it's time to get the chopper up in the air. Remember, get some earplugs if the moans of the undead start making you feel a little batty.
