Killing Ground

Saw this recently on a pirated DVD. It is about a couple who retreat to the woods on a romantic camping trip. Things don't go well....... Nowhere close to Eden lake, Preservation or Storm warning. These names should be suffice to explain in short what this movie is about. In Eden lake, the tension, violence n the ending was shocking. While in Storm warning, the gore n the killings were brutal. Preservation was decent but Killing ground failed to impress. Well, it wasn't boring or messed up but at times i found it hard to sit through certain scenes. Two things i cannot bear even on screen is rape n any harm towards kids. Thankfully the director avoided abusive scenes but even some off screen scenes were a bit too hard for me. The character development of the bad guys were done well. They are given nearly as much screen time as the main leads. The bearded villain looked like Mel Gibson from Blood father. The movies non linear approach to story telling might appeal to some viewers but there isn't any originality in it.

When you watch a large variety of movies something you come to notice is that every different country makes films very uniquely. I've come to find that I quite like Australia's way of story telling. Their characteristics are likable and realistic characters, they're not afraid of extreme violence and they like to have a little bit of a psychological edge to their story. All three of those traits are apparent in 'Killing Ground' which turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable experience.

I didn't go into the film with a lot of hope, simply because it looked low-budget and I am finder it harder and harder to come across good quality, low-budget films. It really pleasantly surprised me however. It gets off to a very patient and slow start with almost no action taking place for at least the first 30 minutes. Usually this would be an absolute killer for any horror/thriller movie, but on this occasion the characters were strong enough that I could enjoy that period of the film regardless.

I like a film that isn't afraid to be bold and this is certainly one of those. It's a film that doesn't want to be forgotten about any time soon. It wants to stick with you for a while to come. Not simply by having some pretty explicit violence at times, but more so by the psychological twist that is created near the end. The whole film is quite masterfully put together. One not to be missed.

Well I have to say it's not your average thriller. the acting is pretty good but the story will leave you shouting at your tele....or maybe that was just me. You realize watching this, you automatically expect it to go a certain way from watching similar films but wow you're in for a surprise. Hence the shouting at the tele. Watch it and you'll see.

It's one of those movies that's very disturbing without needing to say very much. You realize how dramatic some movies can be when you see a movie like this one that does so little to tell us what's going on. In that sense it's brilliant.

It's a perfect example of why you should never go out in the woods, cause two campers went out there thinking it was cool but discover that the campers roughing it on the same camp site did not have a wonderful experience, when a couple of dim witted hunters prove that nature is not all it's cracked up to be.

Killing ground was a well made film that speaks softly but says a lot.

From what I've noticed, horror has been divided in too many subcategories. We have gore, torture porn, dark thrillers and so on. The French do most of the gore as clearly they missed the mark for a true scary story. Of course there are some better examples like Haute Tension or Martyrs for some, but they still include a lot of blood and violence. Spain makes brilliant thrillers, just lovely, superb stories that rarely manage to scare but intrigue more than anything.

An Aussie horror is mainly represented by some lost campers somewhere that are about to be tortured by some crazy hillbillies. I've seen this story so many times, that it turned into nothing short but boredom for me. I won't say Killing Ground is a bad movie, far from it, but it has been made a lot of times before. Storm Warning, Wolf Creek, Timber Falls, Eden Lake, Turistas and so many that turned the formula into a cliché by now. It's like seeing another zombie movie, you know what you are about to watch and expect right?

So if you want to watch another add-on of this type, go ahead, it will deliver perhaps slightly better. I'm ready for something different tho.

Cheers!