2 reviews
Baal. A young woman (Meg Clarke) searches for her brother in the wilds of Australia after the 'death' of their father. This 2023 Australian family horror tale from writer/director Joseph Sims-Dennett seems to be trying to create an evocative, atmospheric film of mood and feeling, and although it's visuals at times are not bad, it's a slow, restrained film, where not much happens, and it rather comes unstuck somewhat due to not really going anywhere. It also has the slight whiff of the amateur in both dialogue (with occasional audience titters) and it's 'fractured' back and forth narrative, and the audience may also feel that they are in the land of 'the god of lost souls'. Vaguely similar to the much better New Zealand film 'The Lost Tribe' (especially the ending), it's a film which shows that families are for keeps.
- filmreviewradical
- Jul 6, 2025
- Permalink
Saw this at the Imagine 2024 film festival in Amsterdam. Apart from lead actor Grace's presence, I cannot find anything useful in this movie. The binding story is left in the dark (no pun intended) and gets lost in the woods (again, no pun intended), and there is no information about the family in question, and how Grace, David and parents lived together.
(Side note: I've read about an abusive father in the synopsis on the festival website. The movie itself did not tell us that. Ditto, the town's past when mining was the center of their world, now derelict, was also derived from the festival's website. A vague hint to its relevance became clear not until the last scene. End side note.)
Maybe the Australian accents were the cause that some dialog escaped me, information that might possibly have been useful to get the family circumstances and tell us more about the town's past. The random chronology of scenes and fragments, by some reviewers applauded as something clever, did not help much either. Of course, it is a daunting thought to be abandoned by your guide, to get lost in those vast woods, and to sprain your ankle too, all that heading to an unclear target, but that alone does not make a good Horror movie.
As a seasoned Horror watcher, I was not impressed by the bloody raid on a group of campers, and particularly not by the strange ritual when hanging the corpses upside down on trees, covered in blood drenched blankets.
All in all, lacking a real plot, throwing in unclear developments, and devoid of interesting protagonists, this so-called Horror consists only of a large collection of trees and darkness to render it scary. Pity to write it down so harshly, but that's all there is.
(Side note: I've read about an abusive father in the synopsis on the festival website. The movie itself did not tell us that. Ditto, the town's past when mining was the center of their world, now derelict, was also derived from the festival's website. A vague hint to its relevance became clear not until the last scene. End side note.)
Maybe the Australian accents were the cause that some dialog escaped me, information that might possibly have been useful to get the family circumstances and tell us more about the town's past. The random chronology of scenes and fragments, by some reviewers applauded as something clever, did not help much either. Of course, it is a daunting thought to be abandoned by your guide, to get lost in those vast woods, and to sprain your ankle too, all that heading to an unclear target, but that alone does not make a good Horror movie.
As a seasoned Horror watcher, I was not impressed by the bloody raid on a group of campers, and particularly not by the strange ritual when hanging the corpses upside down on trees, covered in blood drenched blankets.
All in all, lacking a real plot, throwing in unclear developments, and devoid of interesting protagonists, this so-called Horror consists only of a large collection of trees and darkness to render it scary. Pity to write it down so harshly, but that's all there is.