Cult Girls is, well, an abomination of a film. It was written and directed by Mark Bakaitis. Bakaitis is no fool, holding a swag of awards for video clips. Yet somehow this hotch-potch which is light on surrealism, heavy on eroticism and rife with a clumsy sort gothic horror bears none of the grace and inventiveness of his video clip work.
The plot, such as it is, sees Dalia and her two sisters grow up in a heavy metal apocalyptic sect. She escapes and authorities break up the sect - or appear to.
The sect manifests again and the sisters venture into it to hopefully reunite. I gather it is some sort of cheapish Inferno.
The dialogue is stilted, the acting porcine like (hammy), the direction limp when a firm grasp was required, and cinematography stuck on muted dull shades of misery. This is not a good film.
Some reviewers have thrown the phrase 'pagan' or 'folk' horror about in relation to the film. This project is as much folk horror (FH) as it is worthy of a 10. Both are improbable to the point of nonsense. FH is typically set in a rural environment, has one or more innocents, taps into some sort established pagan structure, Lovecraftian is popular, and so on. Cult Girls meets none of the criteria often used to define the genre and bears no resemblance at all to the Wicker Man or The Colour of Space.
The very last line in the film mentions Ragana, a witch from Latvian / Lithuanian mythology. Perhaps if they had started here and developed Ragana by name as much more explicit and integral to events within the movie they may have salvaged something. But they didn't.
The anti-Christian theme is tackled, for instance, in the ritualized anointing of naked girls into, well, into whatever it is they are being anointed into. Christian sacraments are rigorously prescribed and deeply embedded in their particular tradition. The ritualized anointing in this film is nothing more than a left over from the tacky and nasty groping of the old T&A days of Ozploitation. That is to say, an opportunity to expose a little more gratuitous T&A.
One of the many issues with the film is that there is simply too much of everything: plot twists, music changes, characters, settings, scene shifts, gratuitous nudity, etc, etc. It's American but the film, They Remain, is a lesson in successful minimalist Folk Horror, minimalist in all areas including stretching a limited, minimalist, budget.
The setting fluctuates between Germany, Lithuania and some of Melbourne's industrial wastelands. I suspect it's mainly Melbourne and environs with a bit of fortuitous holiday footage thrown in. Buildings adorned with graffiti are generic as is mega death heavy metal droning and whining in the background. There is occasional and enchanting Celtic cantillating that is lovely to listen to and pushes beyond the incessant aural clichés.
I usually give credit for intent. No one goes into the making a movie with the intent of making a bad one. Budget, politics, and abilities - various other factors come into play. I'm not so certain here. It's just possible that director Mark Bakaitis wanted to be first over the line with a new wave Australian FH; first over the line at any cost. (Films like The Wave, though not 'new wave' unfortunately, confirm him as too late.)
