Tag: australia

The Reef: Stalked

  By

★★★
“Canoe’s company”

This is a sequel to Traucki’s 2010 film, The Reef, whose synopsis reads: “A sailing trip becomes a disaster for a group of friends when the boat sinks and a white shark hunts the helpless passengers.” I haven’t seen it, yet based on that, I’m not sure I need to. Replace “sailing” with “kayaking”, and you’re more or less here. Perhaps lob in a bit borrowed from The Descent, the trip in this case being partly a memorial for a lost friend. Here, it’s to honour a woman who was drowned by her abusive husband. Her sisters, Nic (Liane) and Annie (Archer), head off with Jodie (Truong) and Lisa (Lister). It’s not long before they find themselves hunted by a shark, and needing to cross open water in order to get help for an injured young girl, who was also attacked.

I’m not joking when I say the shark here appears to be a metaphor for toxic masculinity, as seen in the sisters’ murderous brother-in-law. He is literally the only man in the entire film. Fortunately, once they hit the water, it’s easy to forget the rather heavy-handed messaging which we get at the beginning. However, it does mean you know the death-toll here will be limited, because otherwise the patriarchy will have won. It’s also definitely the shark film with the most F-bombs I’ve ever seen, because Australia. I will say, given the scenario, the heroines exhibit a real lack of urgency in their kayaking. I mean, I would be flailing away like an aquatic helicopter in their situation, rather than the languid paddling they tend to demonstrate.

On the other hand, the makers do an excellent job of combining footage of real sharks with practical effects and CGI, into a cohesive whole. The results are generally effective, and occasionally impressive. The relationship between the women is nicely portrayed; they are not saints, and bicker over the best way to address the situation. Nic seems to be suffering an odd kind of PTSD, after the trauma of discovering her sister’s body in the bath. This translates into her suffering from drowning flashbacks somehow. While I dunno quite how that works, maybe a kayaking holiday isn’t the best choice of vacation?

As ever though, movies like this really are not about logical analysis, because a fear of being eaten alive by sharks isn’t logical either. [They cause maybe 10 deaths a year worldwide, compared to 2,000 killed after being struck by lightning, something we literally use as a metaphor for extremely rare events] They need to connect with the audience on a more emotional, almost a primeval level, and this did it for me on enough occasions to justify its existence. I’m not convinced about the need to try and inject social commentary into shark movies: there are plenty of other horror sub-genres better suited to it. However, it’s still possible to set that aside and appreciate the simple, oceanic pleasures this has to offer.

A version of this review previously appeared on Film Blitz.

Avarice

  By

★★★
“An arrow-ing experience.”

I’m not 100% sure, but I suspect this may be the first film I’ve tagged as both in the “sport” and “home invasion” genres. It’s not a crossover you see every day. However, it is fair comment in this case, even if takes its own sweet time to get there. Kate Matthews (Alexy) has various bits of static in her life. Her husband, Ash (Ford), spends too much time at his Very Important job in high finance, rather than on their relationship. Daughter Susan is being a teenager. Kate just lost an archery tournament. Oh, and their house has been invaded by Reed (Nell) and her band of thugs, who are now intent on forcing Ash to transfer thirty million dollars into their offshore bank-accounts.

The early stages of this are more than a bit wobbly. We’re given no particular reason to side with Kate, whose issues seem very much of the type typically deserving the hashtag, #FirstWorldProblems. Having helped raise a teenage daughter myself, Susan’s behaviour is very much at the mild end. You have never truly parented, until you get a phone call in the middle of the night, telling you your offspring has been arrested. Slight sullenness isn’t cause for sympathy. On the other side of the coin, the villains seem to be hired for their muscles rather than their brains. More than once Kate is tied up and manages to free herself, which should surely be covered in Henching 1.0.1.

Reed is an honourable exception, being both competent and extremely ruthless: let’s just say, Kate’s family gatherings will not be the same size after this event. Once she begins to take charge, the movie shifts up a gear, and this is also around the point at which Kate’s pastime of choice begins to become relevant. To be clear, it does take about an hour for the first arrow to be fired in anger, and I was wondering, given the cover, whether this was going to be another case of archery teasing: all show and no bow. The final third does make an energetic attempt to make up for this earlier shortfall, and to quite satisfactory effect. Some of the subsequent pointy violence is rather effective.

This is especially the case when Kate, for justifiable reasons (again: think smaller family gatherings…) decides to take the fight to the invaders, and goes into the warehouse from which they are operating. While a bit contrived, this provides a fine location for a spot of stalk ‘n’ shoot, as she picks off the minions one at a time. If you’re hoping this is going eventually to lead to a battle between her and Reed, you will not be disappointed, and it goes to prove that a bow and arrow can be just as effective in close combat, if you are prepared to adapt. Mind you, I’d have dumped Ash’s sorry ass, since he proves to be less than useless. That’s just me though.

Dir: John V. Soto
Star: Gillian Alexy, Luke Ford, Alexandra Nell, Ryan Panizza

The Flood

  By

★★★
“Destroy me? They made me…”

The first eighty or so minutes of this are really good: powerful, committed and extremely angry film-making. And justifiably so, I would say. Unfortunately, the film runs for a hundred and seventeen minutes, and definitely goes off the rails towards the end. The gritty realism which was perhaps the movie’s strongest suit is replaced by odd fantasy sequences, such as the fugitive couple suddenly dressed, in the middle of a forest, as if they were attending a Victorian embassy ball. I’m not certain what the point of these elements, or the anachronistic pop songs were. I am certain that they didn’t enhance my appreciation of the film in any way, and that’s a shame, considering how assured it had been in the early going.

There’s no doubt aboriginal Australians received a really bad deal from their government, up until very recent times. As this film documents, they were forced off their lands, and their children frequently taken away as wards of the state. Even those who served their country honourably in World War II, like Waru Banganha  (Cook), were denied basic civil rights on their return to civilian life. Hard to blame Waru for going berserk, and killing some of the Mackay family who had sexually abused his wife, Jarah (Lane), and their daughter, Maggie (Williams), while he was fighting in the jungle. Worse is then to follow, as Jarah is gang-raped while in custody, in an attempt to get her husband’s location. “Don’t let what they did you destroy you,” a friend tells her. Jarah responds with the chilling line at the top of the review. She’s not wrong, as she takes revenge on the Mackays and their cronies, first rescuing and then alongside Waru.

What’s interesting is that, despite his military training, it’s largely Jarah – no mean shot with a gun herself – who takes the lead, and shows little or no mercy. She has decided that they must pay, even those who were only tangentially involved in ripping her family apart, and does so with a clear-headed intensity and ferocity which is wonderful to behold. This kind of story can easily feel like pandering, playing on liberal white guilt, yet McIntyre avoids that. The closest cousin to the body of this picture might be the blaxploitation flicks of the seventies, where the hero or heroine was pushed too far, and eventually stuck it to “the man”. Abosploitation? Though if we’re making up words, it also feels like a “Vegemite Western”, despite the post-war time-frame.

Throughout this, there have been flashbacks and memories that could be dreams. However, these have generally been restrained, and if not maybe adding too much to the film, don’t feel like they hurt it. That changed in the final third, with the pace dropping close to zero, just when it should be ramping up to a climax with all guns blazing. I will admit in particular to rolling my eyes at the redemptive fate of the main antagonist, who deserved considerably worse than he received. The energy and momentum this possessed, just about carries the film over the finish line. Yet I can’t help feeling. it should have been a great deal more effective.

Dir: Victoria Wharfe McIntyre
Star: Alexis Lane, Shaka Cook, Dean Kyrwood, Dalara Williams

El Monstro del Mar!

  By

★★★
“Catch of the day.”

I could have sworn I’ve seen this before, but a search of the reviews suggest otherwise! This is an Australian pastiche of a couple of different things. Perhaps the most obvious influence is Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, in that it’s the road misadventures of a trio of delinquent women – two brunettes and a blonde. The leader, Beretta (Scarlet) looks something like a cross between Tura Satana and Bettie Page. We’re less than ten minutes in before their psychopathic nature is revealed, in the brutal killing of two men who stop to offer them roadside assistance – I did like the way the film, shot in black-and-white to that point, explodes into full colour when the violence starts.

They turn out to be hitwomen, hiding out in a beachfront house after completing their latest job, where they cross paths with – further nods to Pussycat – a grumpy old misogynist in a wheelchair, and an innocent young girl, Hannah (Capri). But where it diverges significantly from the Russ Meyer classic is… Well, as you’d expect from the title, the presence of a sea-monster, whose hunger has been impacting the town for decades (including Hannah’s parents).. Yeah, I don’t remember one of them in Pussycat. Then again, that did take place in the desert. It doesn’t actually get any screen time until the half-way point, and the film is quite chat-heavy to that point, save one blood-drenched flashback sequence.

While it’s undeniably a low-budget creature across the board, the atmosphere, assisted by some good use of filters and colour in general, has a Lovecraftian feel to it that was unexpected and well executed. In the second half, there is an increasingly gloomy and oppressive feeling, as the trio stumble across a series of body parts, eventually losing one of their own to the monster, while Hannah rebels against her grandfather. Inevitably, it all ends in the surviving duo taking the fight to the monster and its many tentacles, assisted by Hannah, after they learn the truth about what has been going on. It’s a very moist battle, with body fluids flying on both sides, though I was a bit disappointed we never get to appreciate the full scope of the beast.

It does make for a rather awkward combination, with the two halves of the movie never quite meshing. I kept expecting the fact they were hitwomen would show relevance, but it never amounts to anything: they could simply have been tourists on a seaside vacation. The same goes for the apparent wild swings in era; the cars at the start look sixties vintage, but have very eighties cassette players in them. and any period feel is all but discarded on arrival by the water. However, even if the elements here never go together as you feel they should, they work well enough on their own. If you’re in the mood for a genre fondue, which throws everything into the same pot, you could do worse. Scarlet may not quite be Tura Satana, but then – nobody is.

Dir: Stuart Simpson
Star: Nelli Scarlet, Kyrie Capri, Karli Madden, Kate Watts

Wentworth

  By

★★★★
“Sheilas behind bars.”

Back in the eighties, there was an Australian women-in-prison soap opera called Prisoner Cell Block H. [It was called Prisoner on its home turf, but was renamed in the UK and US, to avoid confusion with The Prisoner] It ran for eight seasons, totalling 692 (!) episodes, and achieved a fair bit of cult status, mostly through late-night screenings on TV. Much of its reputation was based on “so bad it’s good” elements, such as the wobbly sets; a review calls it, “one of the most bizarre, violent, lesbian-fetishy-heart-warming dramas ever created.” The show concluded its run in 1986, but was never forgotten.

More than 25 years later, the concept was rebooted in 2013 as Wentworth, and enjoyed a renaissance. While also running for eight seasons, rather than trash (not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you!), this version proved to be remarkably well made. It likely helped that the remake’s production schedule here was rather less frantic, ending at exactly 100 episodes last October. The show is currently ranked by the IMDb in the top 250 TV series of all time, and was sold to over 90 countries, achieving a worldwide audience, thanks in part to its distribution on streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime.

It spawned local remakes in a number of countries. The Dutch was the most successful, running for four seasons, but Belgium, Germany and Turkey also took the show and recreated it. [Here is as good a place as any to mention that back in 1982, there was a male spin-off of the original show called Punishment. Though it lasted only one season, the cast included some guy called Mel Gibson…] Indeed, the Turkish one, known on Netflix as The Yard, was reviewed here in August 2020. That review began, “I really must get round to reviewing Wentworth.” And eighteen months later, here we are…

It’s a show I’ve thought about covering on a number of occasions over its run, but now that it’s finished, I feel I can finally do it justice. I definitely can’t argue with the acclaim it has received. For Wentworth features a slew of extremely strong female characters, including one of the most memorable villainesses in TV history, and maintained a high degree of dramatic quality from beginning to end. That’s rare for a series; even classics like Buffy dropped off after a certain point, with commercial motivations typically surpassing artistic ones. Not so here, with the eighth series virtually as strong as the first.

One element, which it does share with its predecessor, is that the setting is the “star”, rather than any performer. I think this certainly helped contribute to its longevity, and sustained the show’s freshness. If one of the actresses began to feel jaded, and wanted out, their character could be replaced by another. The prison scenario meant there were always new arrivals potentially coming in, and scope for departures too, without excessively disrupting the overall structure. If you look at many of the ultra-long running shows, e.g. Dr Who or the many incarnations of Law and Order, they have a similar ability to rotate their cast seamlessly.

Not to say there weren’t main characters – many of them with the names and/or backgrounds as their “ancestors” in Cell Block H. But they tended to have arcs across three or four years; few lasted the full eight, mostly on the guard side. This timeframes was long enough to allow for fulfilling development, without getting stale. The first such was Bea Smith (Cormack), who arrives at Wentworth after attempting to murder her husband, following years of abuse. She becomes involved in the struggle for “Top Dog” status – the role of the most powerful prisoner – between two existing inmates, only to end up becoming Top Dog herself. However, it’s a lonely position, where you always have to watch your back, and allies can suddenly become enemies.

One such was the character mentioned above: Joan Ferguson (Rabe), known as ‘The Freak’ (left). She joined the show as the new governor of Wentworth in season 2, and was, to be blunt, a clinical psychopath, devoid of empathy and incredibly manipulative. She was also very smart, a lethal combination. However, it’s not enough to save her from ending up a prisoner in the jail herself. The first episode of season 5, where Ferguson is released into the general population was, for me, peak Wentworth, and one of the best 45 minutes of television I’ve seen, in any genre.

Remarkably, she didn’t just survive this reversal of fortune, but thrived. She took over as Top Dog. until an escape plan misfired, ending in her being buried alive by long-serving prison officer Will Jackson (Robbie Magasiva)). But you can’t keep a good villainess down, though it appeared the trauma led to amnesia, with Ferguson subsequently using a different name and with a completely different personality. Was this genuine, or another of her ruses? I couldn’t possibly reveal that. What I will do though, is laud a glorious performance by Rabe, who at six feet tall, has a remarkable physical presence, backed up by ferocious intensity. She’s Cersei Lannister on steroids. And without the incest.

In general, it’s perhaps less exploitative than you might expect, with nudity only when genuinely necessary to the plot, rather than for titillation purposes. On the other hand, the show does not soft-pedal the brutality of prison life, with violence and death a common occurrence. Inmates tend to handle their own infractions internally, the Top Dog having the ability to impose punishments for theft, deceit or, perhaps the worst offense of all, “lagging” i.e. talking to prison authorities. It would definitely be rated a hard R, purely for its authentically no-holds barred language. Boy, do the Aussies love themselves a good c-bomb – even more than us Scots!

There were, admittedly, times where the story-lines seemed to get away from the creators. A few threads did appear to be ended, rather than properly resolved. But considering the 70+ hours of television the show represented, such misfires proved remarkably few. The writers definitely had a talent for juggling multiple plot threads and keeping them all moving forward simultaneously. In the end though, it was the actresses (and actors) who made this show what it was, and which kept us coming back for the best part of a decade. If not our favourite show ever on Netflix, it’s definitely up there with the very best.

Creators: Lara Radulovich and David Hannam
Star: Danielle Cormack, Pamela Rabe, Kate Atkinson, Katrina Milosevic 

Agent Elite

  By

★★½
“Aus-tomatic weapon.”

When she was very young, the parents of Alex (Karpati) were killed by Lester Casey (Richards), on the orders of the shadowy organization for whom both he and her father worked. She was adopted by them, and brought up, trained in a variety of lethal arts, to become a perfect weapon. However, her mentor, Montgomery Lomax (Grillini), also instilled in her an unwelcome sense of right and wrong, and when he dies, she goes on the run from the organization. After defeating the agents sent to take her out, they use that moral compass to entrap Alex, and bring her back under their control. Brainwashing ensues. Whether it will stick, and the consequences if it doesn’t, are to be determined.

Initially, this isn’t bad. You have to accept the conceit that, having spent so long creating Alex as an operative, a clandestine group would simply write her off on the basis that, and I quote, “Retrieval and debriefing are time consuming.” Oh, like the seventeen years you spend training her weren’t? Similarly, despite knowing what she’s capable of, they waste further time and resources, sending operatives after her, one by one. Still, we’ll take it, since Karpati clearly knows her way around a punch, even if appreciation of her skills is hampered, rather than enhanced, by the over-active camerawork. I’d also have preferred actual blood and head-shots over the dubious, if enthusiastic, CGI we get here.

However, it keeps moving and there’s no shortage of action, so is entertaining enough. I’d not have minded seeing what else Karpati can do, but looks like she hasn’t appeared in any released feature-films over the eight years since this was completed. Seems a bit of a pity. Unfortunately, things get rather derailed after her capture, re-programming and subsequent release. This requires Karpati to act, and it almost feels as if her heart isn’t in it. She is, however, miles better in the drama department than Dane (Matheson), the guy she bumps into at the laundromat, and with whom she begins a relationship. His performance is so bad, it’s positively a distraction during ever scene in which he appears.

The plot somehow ends up with Alex being captured by some Islamic fundamentalists, albeit only temporarily and to their ultimate demise.  Though this comes about so quickly, it feels as if there was a missing reel in the picture. One minute, she’s having a chat with herself in the mirror (a scene which is actually quite nifty, in a Gollum kinda way), about the best way to dispose of someone. The next we see of her, she’s dangling like a piñata in a warehouse, supposedly in the Pakistani province of Waziristan. Wait, what? Naturally, it all ends with her facing off against Casey, after she discovers what he did to her parents. Another problem is, this finale is both obvious and its execution provides no sense of escalation, action-wise. The first half sets relatively high expectations on this front, that the second half all but abandons, and certainly doesn’t match.

Dir: James Richards
Star: Naomi Karpati, James Richards, Mirko Grillini, Chris Matheson
a.k.a. Agent Provocateur

Ride Like a Girl

  By

★★½
“Trots, when it should gallop”

This opens and closes with footage and photographs of the real Michelle Payne, who is the subject of the film. Part of me wonders if that documentary approach might have proved a more successful one, rather than the parade of sports drama cliches we get here. Admittedly, quite a lot of them are based in fact. Payne was the first woman to ride to victory in the Melbourne Cup – that’s Australia’s premier horse-race, roughly equivalent in prestige to the Kentucky Derby or Grand National in the US or UK respectively. This alone, is quite an achievement. But she did so as one of ten brothers and sisters, who largely had to bring themselves up after their mother died when Michelle was only six months old. Her father was a horse trainer, and no fewer than eight of his offspring became jockeys, including Michelle of course.

In this version, Palmer plays the heroine, with Neill the ever-tolerant father attempting to steer her career. It’s not easy, with Michelle having to deal with a racing establishment that still doubts women can be as good jockeys as men, before eventually convincing owner Darren Weir (Stapleton) to give her a chance. She also has to come back from an fall that left her with a fractured skull and bruised brain. Then, she almost lost the opportunity to ride her horse, Prince of Penzance, in the big race after being suspended for racing tactics perceived as dangerous, fairly or not. In other words: basically checking off all the obvious impediments, and the film adds little or nothing of note to them, though some of the racing footage is effective enough. [The film, probably wisely, glosses over post-Cup events. Prince of Penzance went lame and had to retire; Weir was charged with cruelty to animals; and Payne got another suspension for amphetamine abuse. Oops]

It works better when it’s remaining grounded, in a way only Australians can be. Neill does a good job of that as the long-suffering father, and it’s a shame he all but vanishes from the second half of proceedings. It does offer amusing moments like watching a posse of nuns (or whatever the collective term is for them!), marching into a bookmakers on Melbourne Cup Day to bet on Payne and her pony. Much credit is also due to the film-makers for letting Payne’s real-life brother, Stevie, who has Down’s Syndrome, play himself in the movie. But it does suffer from what is likely an inevitable problem given the source material: we know how it’s going to end, and how it’s going to get there as well. Given this, taking a few more risks with the approach or the portrayals of the characters might have been warranted. Instead, Griffiths seems intent on taking the safest route she can find between plot-points which are largely obvious. The results are, as you’d expect, little more than feel-good fodder.

Dir: Rachel Griffiths
Star: Teresa Palmer, Sam Neill, Sullivan Stapleton, Stevie Payne

Tomboys

  By

★★★½
“What happens in the barn, stays in the barn…”

Dark in literally every sense of the word, this Australian film unfolds in close to real-time. Five women, fed up with the abuse of a local sexual predator, kidnap him and take him to a building on a farm owned by one of them, to teach him a lesson. However, it’s not long before their revenge begins to go off the rails. Firstly, not everyone is quite as on board as with the plan. Kat (Day) is the most gung-ho, intent on exacting the most brutal flavour of retribution. But at the other end is Imogen (Hall): barely have things got under way, and she’s already having second thoughts, as the apparent weak link. Then, after the savagery has got under way, the women get a phone-call, from their intended target. Yep, they got the wrong victim. But is anyone really innocent? Or should they just do a twofer?

This certainly doesn’t feel it was made over a decade ago; its themes are right up there with a post-#MeToo world. On that basis, it was interesting to compare this to the woeful recent Black Christmas remake, watched the same weekend. which was also (at least in its early stages) about a group of women coming to terms with “rape culture”. Tomboys adopts a much more direct approach, yet is also rather more nuanced, offering a broader spectrum of opinions, even as it’s basically five chicks in a shed for an hour and a half. Which tells you a lot about the dismal failure of Christmas, I suspect. This, however, doesn’t shy from violence: not so much in an explicit depiction as in reactions and results, which are arguably just as horrific. You wonder how Cat could possibly justify the savagery in which she indulges. Then, towards the end, you hear her story, and it’s thoroughly ugly, repellent stuff. Never mind, Cat – please continue wielding that blow-torch…

However, I was irrationally annoyed by the cinematic style, with Hill pushing the camera in too close, and also keeping the lighting at the dimmest level. I get why he opted for this approach, to create a claustrophobic intensity. It doesn’t mean I have to like it, however. For some reason, I prefer being able to see what the hell is going on when watching a film, and there are times here when I simply can’t. [The still, top, is considerably more well-illuminated than 95% of the film] Not sure we necessarily needed five female characters, either; Cat, Imogen and one other would probably be enough. Yet this remains solid where it matters most, in the story and performances. There were sufficient twists to keep me engaged, and the main roles were well-differentiated, despite the limited setting. This could very easily be a stage play, albeit one harkening back to the days of Grand Guignol. It’s a production I wouldn’t mind going to see.

Dir: Nathan Hill
Star: Candice Day, Naomi Davis, Sash Milne, Allie Hall

The Nightingale

  By

★★★
“Pack your bags, we’re going on a guilt trip!”

History is largely filled with people being unpleasant to each other, usually for belonging to a different race, religion, nationality or even species [if you want to go back to the Cro-Magnons pushing out the Neanderthals about 40,000 years ago]. It’s sad and unfortunate, but it’s not something for which I feel personal responsibility – not least because it tends to work in both directions. My ancestors may have been part of the British Empire who, for example, invented the concentration camp in the Boer War. But my ancestors were also subject to the ethnic cleansing of the Highland Clearances, forced out to make way for sheep. Attempts to make me feel guilty for the sins of my forefathers are thus largely doomed to fail.

And what we have here, is a well-crafted exercise in manipulation. It’s set in what is now Tasmania, then a penal colony where the British garrison were trying to maintain control, both of the prisoners and the indigenous population, using savage brutality against both. One of the former is Clare Carroll (Franciosi), an Irish woman convicted of theft who is now married to another prisoner and working in an army garrison. She is at the mercy of Lieutenant Hawkins (Claflin), who wields a letter of recommendation, which would give Clare and her family freedom, as power over her. Circumstances escalate to a night where she is raped and left for dead, while her husband and infant child are murdered. Hawkins leaves for the capital of Launceston, in pursuit of a promotion. Clare follows, intent on revenge, helped on the trail by Billy (Ganambarr), an Aboriginal tracker, who has also borne the brunt of colonial savagery in his past.

It’s effective, in the same way that a 2×4 across the head will get your attention. It’s not exactly subtle in the parallels being drawn between Clare and Billy, who have both suffered at the hands of the evil Brits, and who subsequently bond over their victimhood. Hawkins is such an evil swine, he might as well spend the entire film twirling his mustache. But despite being such an obvious attempt at generating outrage, it’s not without its merits. Franciosi delivers a fierce and intense performance, as someone who has lost everything, and so is prepared to go to any lengths to take revenge on those who destroyed her life.

Perhaps the most chilling sequence has her hunting down a soldier, already wounded in an encounter with the local population (which seems to have strayed in from an 80’s Italian cannibal film!). The savage way in which she takes him down and then beats his head to a pulp with her rifle-butt… Yeah, she is clearly highly motivated. However, the simplistic way in which white men are, almost without exception, portrayed as stereotypical villains undoes much of the good work put in by the actors, and dampens its overall effectiveness.

Dir: Jennifer Kent
Star: Aisling Franciosi, Baykali Ganambarr, Sam Claflin, Damon Herriman

The Furies (2019)

  By

★★★½
“The Most Dangerous Game (mixed doubles edition)”

There has been a whole slew of films over the year which have been based on the theme of “hunting humans”. Initially, this Australian entry seems to be going straight down the same line. Kayla (Dodds) has an argument in the street with her best friend. After the latter storms off, Kayla hears her shout for help, but while investigating, is herself abducted. She wakes to find herself in a crate in the middle of some very remote woods. She discovers other women in the same situation, and that they are being chased by beweaponed, masked men with very unpleasant intentions. The area is ring-fenced with electronic barriers which block any exit: survival is going to require Kayla to tap into her inner savage.

All of which is largely as standard, save for some eye-poppingly intense gore. This starts early on, with someone losing the front of their face to an ax. Very slowly. [It was at this point I stopped the film until Chris got home, so she and I could watch it together. Yeah: our “date nights” are a little strange!] There were similarly impressive moments throughout, with a preponderance of practical effects, of which I’m always a fan. Anyway, back at the plot, the other twist also becomes apparent, in that the masked attackers are not operating as one. Indeed, the opening sequence makes clear that them attacking each other is also part of the “game”. And, it turns out, the same goes for the supposed victims. Not for nothing are the crates which hold them and the women labelled “Beast #X” and “Beauty #Y” as appropriate… 

This is a very smart move, adding a whole skein of twists to proceedings, and giving a set-up where Kayla doesn’t know who she can trust on either side. The resulting paranoia brings so much potential for conflict, it is actually a shame the angle doesn’t really blossom until the final third. It would have been more fun, and certainly more obviously “different”, if the ground rules had been established from the beginning. Perhaps with an induction video given by a hyper-perky presenter, as in Battle Royale. There’s definitely a sense of a bigger picture here, which is only glimpsed occasionally. Knowing more about it would have made for a different, and arguably better, experience. The same goes for the technological beats, which raise more questions than they answer.

Another interesting aspect is that there is not a single speaking role for a man in the film. That’s not something you see often, especially in the horror genre. Given the first time we see the heroine, she and her friend are graffiting “FUCK PATRIARCHY” on a wall, this is presumably not accidental, though the movie never puts the message ahead of its story. While men are seen and not heard, the movie makes it clear that women are hardly saintly creatures, inevitably relegated to the role of victim. It turns out, they can be just as malevolently vicious as men. And that, I feel, is true equality at work.

Dir: Tony D’Aquino
Star: Airlie Dodds, Linda Ngo, Taylor Ferguson, Ebony Vagulans