The Loved Ones

It's no surprise that Sean Byrne's relentlessly blood-soaked The Loved Ones won the Cadillac People's Choice Award at TIFF's midnight screening. The young Australian writer/director has since been hard-pressed for free time as many in Hollywood have been vying for his attention.

Since the film's premiere in Toronto, Byrne has been making frequent trips to LA and has been invited to speak with top execs. On this particular trip, Byrne's schedule has been tightly booked from morning until night on every single day thus far, including weekends.

For those who haven't seen The Loved Ones, it is an indie-horror treat. Let's just say, if Carrie from "Carrie" and Jigsaw from "Saw" "wanted to play a game," this film would be the perfect compromise between their approaches. What results is an anti-John-Hughes film that offers a cynical, frightening re-imagining of a high-school prom. The Loved Ones

The film benefits from a cast which is in full-tune with its director. And unlike many horror films today, Byrne's even has something to say. The film's bizarre title provokes us to think about the consequences of unrequited love and, more importantly, the real victims. Of course life would be easier if anyone we fell in love with immediately felt the same way. But in The Loved Ones, love is played as more of a cruel game for all characters.

It may be a bit unusual for American moviegoers to see a horror film carried by actors who speak with Australian accents. Although Peter Jackson was able to earn instant cult-status with his blood-splasher Dead Alive through similar New Zealand accents. Jackson and Byrne already share some in common.

Like Jackson, Byrne seems to be fascinated with shock-horror, fantasy, and even the supernatural. There is also an indie feel to Byrne's work reminiscent of Jackson's earlier low-budget films. So long as the young and talented Byrne is making movies, he just might have to get used to spending more time in Hollywood than at home.

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"The Loved Ones" is an adequate example of the now well-worn "torture" genre, but for the most part it's likely to give viewers a feeling of deja vu. It gets more interesting & amusing as it goes along, but doesn't have very much plot - or much point to it at all. It's likely to delight the hardcore horror crowd who favour cruelty and plenty of gore, in any event. The main asset is a memorable antagonist who's cute but deadly. We don't ever get to know the victim that well, but it's not exactly hard to feel bad for him. (One thing must be said: he has a lot of fight in him!) Also, there's a subplot with two characters that never really goes anywhere.

Lola, a.k.a. "Princess" (Robin McLeavy, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter"), doesn't take rejection well at all. When Brent (Xavier Samuel, "Road Train") declines to take her to the prom, she gets back at him in a major way, by having her dear old daddy (John Brumpton, "Storm Warning") abduct Brent so they can spend the night tormenting him at their own private gathering. Soon he learns just how utterly demented this duo is; meanwhile, people notice he's missing and try to track him down.

If it weren't for a squirm-inducing scene involving a power drill - it's the sound effects that really sell it - and the tour de force acting by McLeavy, there wouldn't be much to recommend this. That is, of course, unless one is partial to this sort of material to begin with. Unfortunately, even for a movie running a scant 85 minutes long, it feels longer than it is. And it's ultimately pretty damn predictable.

Good soundtrack, though.

Six out of 10.

Totally surprised by how awesome this was. I was expecting some campy shallow high school horror film and instead got real thrills, real scares, and REAL CHARACTERS! Can't stress that enough. Awesome performances by actors who had characters written as real people, not effen cardboard cutouts like most slasher films. The only thing that kept me from giving this a ten and declaring it perfect was it is a little thin on any level other than shock-fest. We're treated to a weird family and twisted attachments but it could have been a vehicle to actually SAY something. But even though it didn't make me put on my thinking cap or change my world-view, it was still so much more impressive than I was prepared for!

There may be nothing new under the sun, and there is certainly nothing new on celluloid, but this digital-age flick sure can jump-start a tired old corpse. This one is a creeper, in every sense of the word. It starts slow, but adds speed as it navigates a wasteland littered with slasher-stereotype roadkill, delivering fresh nuances and jolts to the hostage splatterfest subgenre. Managing to be charmingly outback Aussie, yet simultaneously brutally classic Texan Chainsaw/Hills Have Eyes, this may-well be a modern classic. Engrossingly gross, and satisfyingly slick, with crunchy bits.

A far from original tale that bleeds from the initial events when a young and inexperienced driver, through very little fault of his own, removes an important part of his parental relationship by crashing the car at the price of his father's life. As is customary in the genre, the events that unfold some months later are probably more a reflection of the guilt, mental health and anguish being suffered by the young driver, although to believe the type of sadistic pairing he encounters exists, and that they were able to get away with their brutality in the first instance, is far from believable (or maybe not in the place this was made). If you like a bit of incestuous, torturous tyranny, like the aforementioned pair, for no other reason than that's how you get your kicks, then pile in and gorge on the cruelty and sadistic savagery of shallowness.