The Furies

I attended the world-premiere of "The Furies" at the Brussels' Fantastic Film Festival, and writer/director Tony D'Aquino was present to introduce his movie and sing for the outrageous audience (it's tradition in Brussels for directors to sing a song). Admittedly, I always tend to be more lenient and forgiving in my reviews when I hear the makers enthusiastically talk about their films. When you hear him promote his own film, it's clear that D'Aquino is primarily a die-hard horror fanatic, like myself and everyone else in the audience, who grew up with the notorious slasher of the 80s. He combined all his love & knowledge of vintage slasher cinema and made "The Furies"; - a homage to nostalgic horror with an absurd plot and loads of over-the-top gruesome gore. Somewhere in rural Australia, unknown assailants kidnap wayward young girls and release them again the middle of a forest. The girls are trapped in a sick type of VR-game and find themselves pursued by a variety of maniacal killers in horrifying masks. You'd think that the logical thing for the girls to do is stick together and team up against the killers, but the rules of this cat-and-mouse game are slightly different. Hate to say this, but the script is quite nonsensical and every next plot twist is even more ridiculous than the one before. And yet, I honestly can't dislike "The Furies" because the gore and the killers' outfits are simply fantastic! I'm not sure, since I didn't attend the Q&A session with D'Aquino, but I'm strongly suspecting the outfits are inspired by legendary mass murderers like Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, etc... "The Furies" certainly isn't a masterpiece, and probably won't ever become a cult gem, but at midnight at a festival, I love the sight of nasty axe-murders, exploding heads and scooped-out eyeballs!

I wasn't asking either. I was scolding! ☝🏼 What was there not to like? I'm a picky person. A horror snob. I haven't seen a slasher movie to give me these kind of feels since the early 90s. THIS was old school slasher style. I covered my eyes twice, screamed in a pillow and ran in place! Girls get kidnapped and put in coffins that sit in the middle of an isolated field and men in scary masks with hatchets, machetes and axes are hunting them down. But if that wasn't enough for you there were also cringe-worthy kills! How are you not impressed? How were you not entertained? I hardly ever like anything new but this was a rare gem. When it was over I felt like Horror Santa left this for me because he knew I was being good this year and I deserved this. Thanks Santa. 👍🏽

After viewing the trailer I had to give this intriguing flick a go. My expectations were a little high for this movie, but I did thoroughly enjoy it. The main actress Kayla was a good lead and it made me root for her as well as her friends' survival. The kills were intense and uniquely grotesque, and it had great practical effects. The costume design for the psychotic mutants was over the top goretastic. I'm not gonna give away any spoilers, but if you like slasher films give it a shot, it was an overall bloody good time.

After this year's Haunt and Trick, we were brought, The Furies, a great add-on to the slasher genre, with its own rules and premise, different yet far more entertaining than your usual.

It was a beautiful movie, lovely executed, unexpected deep and chilling soundtrack, overall a slasher done right, one that kept these productions heading the right way, to uncharted territory, so I can't wait to see what's next.

I will recommend it to anyone up for a different view, it has its share of great deaths, interesting killers and unexpected turns throughout its run time.

Cheers!

Aussie horror The Furies isn't very original: it's a little bit Saw, a little bit Cube, a little bit Hostel, a little bit Battle Royale, and a lot like so many backwoods slashers. But despite this obvious lack of freshness, it still manages to be a lot of fun, largely thanks to its extreme gore, director Tony D'Aquino ladling on the splatter for his debut feature.

The film opens as two friends, Kayla (Airlie Dodds) and Maddie (Ebony Vagulans), are abducted, rendered unconscious, taken to a remote forest, and put inside wooden boxes. When Kayla wakes up, Maddie is nowhere to be seen, so she explores the surrounding area where she meets other girls in the same situation. Before long, Kayla discovers that she and the other young women are being hunted by a group of masked killers, part of a sick virtual reality game where their every move is broadcasted to members of an elite club via the special eyeball cameras that have been surgically implanted in their heads.

Kayla eventually realises that each abductee has their own assigned maniac who is there to protect them; as each girl dies, so does their 'beast', which leads to a 'survival of the fittest' scenario, where the girls turn on each other to increase their chances of making it out alive.

With the maniacs armed with a range of very sharp weapons (an axe, a scythe, a sickle, a machete, a knife etc.), the deaths are gleefully messy, an impressive array of gory effects drenching the film with blood, guts and body parts: one girl has her face hacked off, another has her arms ripped from her body, we get a superb axe in the head scene, and there's a nasty throat slashing. We also get graphic eye-ball gouging and several exploding heads. In short, The Furies is a gore-hound's delight.

If I had one minor gripe (other than the derivative nature of the plot), it would be that lead Airlie Dodds suffers from what I call 'Samara Weaving Syndrome': in other words, she has a really off-putting, warbling scream. Must be an Australian thing.

6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.