The Furies

I attended the world-premiere of "The Furies" at the Brussels' Fantastic Film Festival, and writer/director Tony D'Aquino was present to introduce his movie and sing for the outrageous audience (it's tradition in Brussels for directors to sing a song). Admittedly, I always tend to be more lenient and forgiving in my reviews when I hear the makers enthusiastically talk about their films. When you hear him promote his own film, it's clear that D'Aquino is primarily a die-hard horror fanatic, like myself and everyone else in the audience, who grew up with the notorious slasher of the 80s. He combined all his love & knowledge of vintage slasher cinema and made "The Furies"; - a homage to nostalgic horror with an absurd plot and loads of over-the-top gruesome gore. Somewhere in rural Australia, unknown assailants kidnap wayward young girls and release them again the middle of a forest. The girls are trapped in a sick type of VR-game and find themselves pursued by a variety of maniacal killers in horrifying masks. You'd think that the logical thing for the girls to do is stick together and team up against the killers, but the rules of this cat-and-mouse game are slightly different. Hate to say this, but the script is quite nonsensical and every next plot twist is even more ridiculous than the one before. And yet, I honestly can't dislike "The Furies" because the gore and the killers' outfits are simply fantastic! I'm not sure, since I didn't attend the Q&A session with D'Aquino, but I'm strongly suspecting the outfits are inspired by legendary mass murderers like Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, etc... "The Furies" certainly isn't a masterpiece, and probably won't ever become a cult gem, but at midnight at a festival, I love the sight of nasty axe-murders, exploding heads and scooped-out eyeballs!

After this year's Haunt and Trick, we were brought, The Furies, a great add-on to the slasher genre, with its own rules and premise, different yet far more entertaining than your usual.

It was a beautiful movie, lovely executed, unexpected deep and chilling soundtrack, overall a slasher done right, one that kept these productions heading the right way, to uncharted territory, so I can't wait to see what's next.

I will recommend it to anyone up for a different view, it has its share of great deaths, interesting killers and unexpected turns throughout its run time.

Cheers!

Aussie horror The Furies isn't very original: it's a little bit Saw, a little bit Cube, a little bit Hostel, a little bit Battle Royale, and a lot like so many backwoods slashers. But despite this obvious lack of freshness, it still manages to be a lot of fun, largely thanks to its extreme gore, director Tony D'Aquino ladling on the splatter for his debut feature.

The film opens as two friends, Kayla (Airlie Dodds) and Maddie (Ebony Vagulans), are abducted, rendered unconscious, taken to a remote forest, and put inside wooden boxes. When Kayla wakes up, Maddie is nowhere to be seen, so she explores the surrounding area where she meets other girls in the same situation. Before long, Kayla discovers that she and the other young women are being hunted by a group of masked killers, part of a sick virtual reality game where their every move is broadcasted to members of an elite club via the special eyeball cameras that have been surgically implanted in their heads.

Kayla eventually realises that each abductee has their own assigned maniac who is there to protect them; as each girl dies, so does their 'beast', which leads to a 'survival of the fittest' scenario, where the girls turn on each other to increase their chances of making it out alive.

With the maniacs armed with a range of very sharp weapons (an axe, a scythe, a sickle, a machete, a knife etc.), the deaths are gleefully messy, an impressive array of gory effects drenching the film with blood, guts and body parts: one girl has her face hacked off, another has her arms ripped from her body, we get a superb axe in the head scene, and there's a nasty throat slashing. We also get graphic eye-ball gouging and several exploding heads. In short, The Furies is a gore-hound's delight.

If I had one minor gripe (other than the derivative nature of the plot), it would be that lead Airlie Dodds suffers from what I call 'Samara Weaving Syndrome': in other words, she has a really off-putting, warbling scream. Must be an Australian thing.

6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

Imagine Michael Mayers, Jason and Leatherface playing a girl's hunting game. So here it is. This is a real little Aussie B-slasher movie but quite good. Original idea and pretty good execution. If you love movies like wrong turn, you'll love this one.

I actually quite enjoyed this! A solid independent movie, in really every facet. The story lines are basic and have been done as nauseum, but at least this one throws a twist in to it with the cameras.

All facets were done well: acting, directing, production, etc, with a shout out to the special fx team for the great gore fx. It's not often that indie films yield such good results. I watched it as a Shudder exclusive, and much in the same way that Boar had some gore, this does too. I really appreciate that from horror producers and directors. DON'T SKIMP ON THE GORE! Nearly your entire audience wants to see some good, ole fashioned blood and guts.

Well done. I recommend a watch for ANY horror fans, and even those in the Thriller camp.