Hounds of Love

Great movie about horrific stuff. There ya go. Evelyn and John cruise Perth school yards, fishing for teenage girls with friendly Aussie banter and car ride offers. The pleasantries end right there.

As the secret predator couple in the neighbourhood, Emma Booth and Stephen Curry are spectacular in their complicated performances. Charming and congenial, slick and methodical, brutal and sadistic, vulnerable and suspicious; all bases are covered. "Hounds of Love" is about serial sexual homicide, and it is as brutal as that sounds. Not in an exploitative manner (most of the cruelty is off screen), but in its believable depiction of perversion, and the matter of fact execution by the monsters.

Sporting a cheesy mustache, Curry presents a tiny, unassuming wimp - he is humiliated and berated about money owing. Yet deep inside he is a tight wound ball of explosion, and the creepy manipulator of all crimes. Evelyn is a more than wiling accomplice, but she has a wounded past, shows some semblance of sympathy, and is thus the weak link in the monster couple. How all this plays out in the most recent triangle is expertly framed by newbie filmmaker Ben Young.

"Hounds of Love" is a difficult watch, but it's also difficult to ignore.

This film is really hard to watch much of the time, not only for the physical and sexual violence depicted on screen, but also the emotional abuse. It's just really unsettling, painful, brutal, tough, disturbing, and horrific.

It follows a murderous couple, John and Evelyn, who kidnap a teenaged girl, Vicki, in Perth, Australia in 1987. The things that transpire are harrowing and stomach-turning. What makes it all the more scary is the fact that this film is quite plausible. The "bad guys" look respectable: like you and me, your neighbors, teachers; they look like normal people, which makes this all the more disquieting. It all feels so real, raw, and visceral. The characters feel like real people and are multidimensional, including the villains, who so easily could've been written as one-dimensional evil people caricatures with no interiority. Evelyn is abused and damaged by John, which is why she tags along. John abuses her and kidnaps teenage girls because it makes him feel dominant. And Vicki isn't a damsel in distress; she's clever and quickly picks up on the tension and power dynamics of the captor couple and manipulates them in her attempts to escape. The dialogue feels realistic and the cinematography is very simplistic and pared-back, almost shot like a documentary, further elevating the verisimilitude; it often feels like you're a fly on the wall. Everything feels gritty.

The acting across the board is good. Emma Booth, Ashleigh Cummings, and Susie Porter are the standouts and all give really great performances. Booth as Evelyn in particular turns in a superb, impressive performance. The swath of emotions she conveys so organically is really something; she vacillates between being chilling to sympathetic to scary to pathetic to pleasant to enraged to envious.

I won't spoil anything, but the ending is really touching and edited so well. It so easily could've felt overly sentimental, but it just felt so moving, which further elevated the film overall. This is definitely worth a watch, albeit it's not for the faint of heart.

Hounds of love is a brutal, needlessly revolting exploration of the minds and deeds of psychopaths. No spoiler needed there. It is brilliantly acted, but as I sat and gave nearly 2 hours of my time to it, i wondered why it was made? With 'Snowtown' a few years back, and an endless number of overseas films dealing with this content, the Australian film industry is not going to stay afloat with horrific scenes as ones captured in this film. I''m not sure I am ever going to be able to laugh at Stephen Curry again; he plays the truly evil lead character here. Emma Booth who came to prominence a decade ago in the industry is impressive here; no doubt; it is guttural and devastating her performance. Ashleigh Cummings as the poor teenager violated by the couple is scaringly believable. The film recreates the look and feel of Western Australia in late 1987 and is creatively shot, edited and directed, but again I ask - why? This is not entertainment. It is torture porn. It is based on real life serial killers as was Snowtown but it has no real purpose.

I am viewing it as part of the 2017 AACTA screening process for the Australian film awards. Certainly Cummings and Booth deserve nods for their work, and Susie Porter is always sturdy and believable; here in a supporting role. Judging by the several pages of reviews already submitted for this film, my entry is probably not required, but this viewer is obviously not impressed by such horror and torture. No matter how brilliantly acted.

I write as an escaped West Australian. We've all got something to live down.

Like Adelaide, Perth has had classic serial killers with an eerie Australian twist. Riffing on a grim 1980s case, Ben Young delivers a fine first feature, for which the Metacritic 72% is not far off the mark. The cinematography is great, capturing the endless hot sky and bleaker suburbs (read Coolbellup or Hamilton Hill) of the 1980s. Also a fine score. The three key players are excellent. The script maybe needed a little more rounding for the ending to gel properly, but I sure felt the tension.

As with Don't Tell and Berlin Syndrome, here's a rare Aussie feature that captures Australia but which I'd be proud to show overseas. Discouragingly, I wonder if the three taken together will pull much more than $1-2m.

Actually uses a real street name, no kidding. Hope it doesn't lead to disaster tourism. Meanwhile, some eagle has already spotted the curious anomaly of the 7-character number plate, never issued in Perth before the 1990s.

In the same vein as the other Aussie horror movies of late, Wolf Creek and The Loved Ones, Hounds of Love is a very gritty tale of teenage abduction by a mature couple.

This is a tough watch for a lot of people and casual watchers will likely be horrified that anyone should want to commit something like this to film.

That being said, this is very well made for something on a tiny budget. The direction, editing and especially the acting by the the three main leads is excellent.

Thankfully, we don't get to see the worst bits of the violence. The director pans away or let's events occur behind closed doors whenever a particular flashpoint occurs.

I would recommend with caution. If you are against animal cruelty of any kind, this will be your worst nightmare.