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| Every sound is threatening in Damien Power's Killing Ground (2016) |
IFC Midnight, a purveyor of some pretty damn good horror movies (
The Autopsy of Jane Doe for one) screened
Killing Ground (Damien Power, 2016) last night at the 2017 Fantasia Film Festival just a few days short of its release in the U.S. and VOD. Since I live too far from a proper city to really experience films in theaters overmuch, I depend on IFC Midnight to show me the new stuff. Their social media coordinator was there to hand out posters and blu-rays and stir up the crowd, which was fun. AND the film was sold out, so the Fantasia crowd craves horror! I would say that the film was...good.
Still, not as groundbreaking or innovative as one would like.
The Blair Witch Project (not Wingard's remake) still wins my vote for scariest camping movie, but I do have a penchant for "vacations from hell" horror--with either troubled couples (
The Strangers,
Vacancy) or ones on the verge of marriage (
Echo Lake).
Killing Ground skews toward the latter as the film joins us with Sam and Ian as the cute couple, newly affianced, decide to go camping for New Years in the Australian outback. Indeed, the setting they choose does seem really pretty, but they arrive to find a tent nearby, and hope that their celebratory privacy won't be spoiled by their neighbors.
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| Bored Em should never go camping with her parents |
The film cuts frequently to two other stories: one concerning teenage Em and her family, including the toddler moppet, Ollie (adding yet another contribution to the baby in peril horror subgenre). The other story follows German and Chook, two slightly menacing morons who you just KNOW are going to be the unfortunate source of all the danger and violence. The film gives them little to no backstory: they have a vicious dog named Banjo, German was in prison, and they are both kind of dumb. That's it. Why are they violent psychopaths--for kicks it seems. The film really did remind me of
Wolf Creek, albeit not as scary, and with villains certainly not as compelling.
The step toward unique the film takes is by mixing up the timelines of the two "victims'" stories, while intermingling the thugs throughout. This jumping back and forth through time is really quite effective, and not immediately noticeable (the family is hanging out a few days after Christmas while Sam and Ian arrive on New Year's Eve). What happens in those few days in between is what creates the sharp tension and dread in the film. We both KNOW what's going to happen, but do not quite KNOW, and that slippage will make you just the right amount of queasy. The puzzle starts to fit together piece by piece in a way that makes you re-examine some of the earlier scenes moments after watching them. Kind of cool.
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| Chook is your garden-variety dumb psycho redneck |
Australia's Outback certainly isn't a hospitable place to camp, as thrill killers German and Chook make clear. While I really like the way the film spends some time with them in order to jumble the linear storyline, and I understand that we are supposed to loath them, these killers are just a bit too pathetic. I guess I didn't quite appreciate their more quiet menace, and wanted them to be more over the top (a la John Jarratt in
Wolf Creek). These two are just not that scary, and I wonder if that's a side effect of spending too much time with them. You know almost exactly what they are going to do, rather than being surprised by their shenanigans.
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| The Baby in Peril trope was not overly annoying |
I really do appreciate some of the choices that Power makes in the representations of violence in the film, although I think forgoing the sexual assault and the baby in peril storyline would have helped matters even more. As expected, the crowd cheered when Sam started to really develop a backbone, relying more on herself than her "doctor" boyfriend to figure things out. Classic Final Girl moxie. I think my favorite thing about the film is when Sam realizes that Ian is not exactly the "husband material" she thought he was. Another "vacation from hell" revealing unfortunate truths. People, what do I have to say to make happy couples avoid camping in the woods as a way to instill intimacy in their burgeoning relationship! DON'T DO IT! Do not go into the woods today, on the advice of some sketchy local, and just hang out in a nice bar in Melbourne instead, holding tight to your romantic delusions.
Killing Ground is fun, but ultimately a little too derivative to properly thrill and chill.
