Killing Ground

Aaron Pederson came off Mystery Road and Goldstone for....this? He should be hitting Hollywood with his talent, but instead he'll settle for a script with little originality or imagination, and fellow great actors wasting their talents. Harriet Dyer is a terrific performer and has shown her charisma on the shows No Activity and The Other Guy, but is only required to be frightened wife captured by a maniac here, big boost into cinema that one is. Aaron Glenane is a convincing psychopath, but his and Pederson's characters are given no motivation or explanation for killing, they just do it for a laugh it seems. The only praise this deserves is for its beautiful cinematography, given the proper cinematic look with a proper film camera and lenses, rather than the grainy fly on the wall style that outstayed its welcome years back. Shows off the amazing countryside but then again does little with it but put in a hackneyed story and boring characters. Another miss for Aussie film. Except for people who love watching people get shot in the head.

Killing Grounds was, at first, a tough watch for me. Seeing how much realism and detail was added to the scenes made me truly feel bad for the victims. One of my favorite parts about this film was their use of the past and present families and showing the stories connect with one another. On top of this, props to the creators not using cheesy jump scares to try and score a cheap shot with the audience. Instead they help develop all of the characters so you feel for each one, good and bad.

Overall, a great twisted horror film that will keep you engaged at all parts, with a bit of a lack luster ending.

7/10

Sometimes going camping might not be the best idea. Especially if you pick the wrong spot. The movie tries to be smart about the beginning and the setting and it does work for a second. But you will get what they do with the two parties at the beach in no time. What you make of it and how you react to this is up to you (that's if you like the editing).

The acting is decent, but the movie does feel to be longer than it actually is. Not really a feel good movie overall of course, but you'd wish it would speed up a little bit. It's predictable overall which I won't hold too much against the movie. But it is dreadful in a bad way and it doesn't really add anything new. So as someone else suggested, there are way better entries, with similar topics that are way better

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!

This is a alright movie with nice elements that makes a good thriller.The movie takes time to introduce the main characters in the first act of the film. BUT i don't care for these characters because of their dumb choices. Green Room is a much better film. Damien Power does a good job directing this film for his directing debut. He is able to tell this story in a interesting and non linear way like Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk. This is a very nice beautiful movie with nice cinematography. The realism and brutality within the film is gut wrenching and on point. The third act is pretty lame and the antagonists felt unrealistic. Though the performances were really great.