A Couple months back I caught the opening premiere along with the Q&A with the cast and crew of this Indie Aussie horror film. Playing out like a disorientating nightmare you can't wake up from, its one of those caught in a time loop narratives. A very similar style to Christopher Smith's mindscrew "Triangle", but early on, you kind of pick up on this foreseeable story device. It doesn't take much to understand where it's heading, but putting the pieces together was a different story.
A college couple travelling Germany takes a turn for the worse when their car breaks down on a lonely, scenic country road late one night, and to add to the stress and confusion is the discovery of a dead body. In the distance, they can see flickering house lights, which they head towards, but what awaits inside this living space is a horrific past wanting to destroy them. The story arc goes about putting the couple into a magnetic vortex shared with a scary dead German SS officer and his family, as the pieces of this horrid mystery starts coming together. In the middle of nowhere, locked in a house, moving from room to room picking up on communicative hints from beyond the grave to what's going on, and what transpired in the homestead's past. Where the journey's destination is damned to history repeating itself, and there's no escaping it.
How the script tries to connect everything can be slightly jaded, at times the pace can grind and it sort of recycles ideas, but I was invested in its universe where its bizarre and sinister atmospherics are effectively brought across. Watching the lead antagonist - a suitably unnerving Andy McPhee in ghastly make-up prosthetics - causing the couple to always look over their shoulders, or psychically and mentally putting the couple through the ringer by torturing them in a few surprise moments; who knew just how creative you could be using a swastika. Oh, the sickening aftermath scene inspired by the nazi symbol, *snap*, *snap*, *snap* and *snap*, will make you cringe by the sight of it. Gotta say, the practical gore FX are used to great effect. No cgi here.
The scares, of a haunted house variety, are systematically done (if too systematic) from moving objects, whispering voices to shots of dead kids materialising and disappearing with frenetic editing, foretelling premonitions flooding the screen in quick bursts and dark, shuddery lighting going hand-to-hand with ear piercing sounds FX and suggestive cinematography. Some great location work too. Sound performances from the cast in spite of the common character traits.
Some story inconsistencies aside, and the standard mechanics are there amongst the creative flourishes and psychological interplay make it a well-handled production for its low-budget restraints.
A college couple travelling Germany takes a turn for the worse when their car breaks down on a lonely, scenic country road late one night, and to add to the stress and confusion is the discovery of a dead body. In the distance, they can see flickering house lights, which they head towards, but what awaits inside this living space is a horrific past wanting to destroy them. The story arc goes about putting the couple into a magnetic vortex shared with a scary dead German SS officer and his family, as the pieces of this horrid mystery starts coming together. In the middle of nowhere, locked in a house, moving from room to room picking up on communicative hints from beyond the grave to what's going on, and what transpired in the homestead's past. Where the journey's destination is damned to history repeating itself, and there's no escaping it.
How the script tries to connect everything can be slightly jaded, at times the pace can grind and it sort of recycles ideas, but I was invested in its universe where its bizarre and sinister atmospherics are effectively brought across. Watching the lead antagonist - a suitably unnerving Andy McPhee in ghastly make-up prosthetics - causing the couple to always look over their shoulders, or psychically and mentally putting the couple through the ringer by torturing them in a few surprise moments; who knew just how creative you could be using a swastika. Oh, the sickening aftermath scene inspired by the nazi symbol, *snap*, *snap*, *snap* and *snap*, will make you cringe by the sight of it. Gotta say, the practical gore FX are used to great effect. No cgi here.
The scares, of a haunted house variety, are systematically done (if too systematic) from moving objects, whispering voices to shots of dead kids materialising and disappearing with frenetic editing, foretelling premonitions flooding the screen in quick bursts and dark, shuddery lighting going hand-to-hand with ear piercing sounds FX and suggestive cinematography. Some great location work too. Sound performances from the cast in spite of the common character traits.
Some story inconsistencies aside, and the standard mechanics are there amongst the creative flourishes and psychological interplay make it a well-handled production for its low-budget restraints.