Coffin Rock

After a visit to a city clinic to find out why they cannot conceive a child, a middle-aged couple from the country become caught up in a young man's obsession when he takes advantage of the woman through manipulation and confidential knowledge. A drunken, vulnerable moment with the young man leads to a terrible secret and tragic events in the town as the young man takes his obsession further.

It seems that a lot of people didn't like this film but maybe they were expecting too much from it. I enjoyed the personal drama and the chance to observe a group of simple towns folk go about dealing with the events in this film.

It has a common theme of an obsessed individual who wants to be intimate with someone who is already married. What makes it different is the setting in an outback coastal country town where everyone knows each other and the limited resources available to them. Not too much effort goes into character development, just that there is a general bleak outlook and a false happiness when the truth is hidden.

A good example of light Aussie drama.

"Coffin Rock" starts out pretty interesting and slow. A couple unable to get a child and building up some relationship problems because of this goes to an Invitro Clinic to try solving their problem. The man gets his sperm tested but unfortunately the woman catches the attention of a strange young guy working at the clinic. The guy decides to follow the woman and make her fall in love with him and this is the first point the viewer wonders about motivation because it seems pretty random and is barely hinted at. The guy, Evan, follows the couple to their home in Coffin Rock where he starts working in a cray business and lives in a trailer just to try to get near the woman.

From here on you pretty much know where its going... the woman gets in a one night stand with Evan after having trouble with her husband who is afraid to read the results of his fertility test and starts acting strange. The woman immediately regrets her drunk misjudgment and realizes that Evan is a little coo-coo and clingy... but to top it off the next pregnancy test is positive. From here its kind of like the Horror Version for "Fatal Attraction" with the roles reversed. The man gets to know about the pregnancy and starts celebrating while his woman is busy trying to hide the truth. Of course Evan gets stranger and invades the privacy of the couple until everything leads to disaster.

"Coffin Rock" builds up tension with moody music, beautiful landscape shots and the slow rising dread around Evan whose past is hinted at in obscure telephone calls to his dad. The acting is superb and helped a lot to get the viewer through the first hour of the movie which is taking damn long for the plot to unfold. Problem is that there is now reward for the viewers patience. The more Evan shows his maniac face the more ridiculous the movie gets and at all times its pretty tame on the violence. Its pretty obvious that "Wolf Creek" was an influence on the lingering dread and atmosphere, the depiction of a kind of cynical and at times joking madman and of course the dozens of cool landscape shots. Anway this movie falls flat because most of the things Evan does are stupid and you are left in the dark about his motivation to follow right this woman and his strange fixation on her child. Except for some fast flashbacks to his dad who of course is dead by now nothing is clear. If you think that around 80 minutes you saw a lot of ludicrous scenes just wait for the finale because they really went overboard with Hollywood clichés there. The last 20 minutes of the movie seem so incredibly forced and yet still as boring as the opening of the movie I really wonder what happened. If you like moody slow thrillers watch "Coffin Rock" for 70 minutes and leave the rest to your imagination. The acting of Evan and the lead woman is great and the creative cinematography and music are also pretty good but the plot is a total mess and pulls everything down.

I had no idea what this would be like when finding this on the shelf in blockbusters. The reference to wolf creek got my attention (same producer).

With no real expectations I was thrilled shocked and entertained. This has all the elements that I need in a film..... good acting, great script and the right 'atmosphere'.

The lead two characters were superb. The menace of Evan (Sam Parsonson)grows as the film develops in parallel with Jess's (Lisa Chappel) anxiety, guilt and horror.

Do yourself a favour forget the latest same old same old Hollywood blockbuster and rent this one.

Not tense or thrilling, Coffin Rock mixes some well rounded drama with ridiculous and laughable "horror". The Oirish madman has some delightful hilarious monologues as he slips into comic madness. The idea of the couple trying to conceive is interesting, and it could have made a great thriller. If only it hadn't revealed the loony's intentions so soon. It should have built upon a fairly absent character, rather than showing us a vicious Kangaroo beating to begin with. Anything after that just seemed tame by comparisons. This is the danger of making a simply serious film on such a low budget. Had it some comical moments, or quirkier scenarios, the entertainment could have made up for the shortcomings. Not exactly worth your time.

I would have given this movie an 8 if they had avoided the ending that 99% of movies fall back on. A 9 would have been awarded if the audio wasn't so out of whack. The dialog was very low and every conceivable background noise was AMPLIFIED.