Tropicana Jul-Aug 2018 #119 Hot Stuff

CULTURE | FILM
Reality Bites
Fiercely individualistic films that use contemporary themes to conjure modern day fears.
THE WITCH [2016]
Writer-director Robert Eggers’s
prize-winning Sundance Film
Festival debut is a period horror
rooted in religious chauvinism
and social isolation. Expelled
from a Puritan plantation,
a God-fearing family of five
set up home on the edge of a
secluded forest. However it
isn’t long before life unravels.
Although the work of a witch,
the family’s blonde teenage
blonde daughter, Thomasin
appears to be at the centre of
a series of horrific tragedies.
Beneath all the wickedness, each
family member hide their own
dark secret. A master storyteller
who embraces the bleak, Eggers
expertly uses the concept of sin
and how the anxiety it creates
naturally invites horror home.
Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy,
Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie,
Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger
and Lucas Dawson
IT FOLLOWS [2014]
It Follows, shrewdly side steps
mainstream teen culture and
laterally focuses on awkward
adolescence in this indie
chiller with a modern twist.
Maika Monroe plays Jay, a
high-schooler whose life turns
chaotic after a fling with Hugh
(Jake Weary). As a result of
her dalliance, she is now being
stalked by a shape-shifting
demon whose curse forces Jay
to selects someone to hook
to pass on the malediction.
Inspired by the work of George
Romero and John Carpenter,
writer-director David Robert
Mitchell’s tightly-coiled tale
of sexual trepidation evokes
both the horror and release
that casual sexual and sexual
liberations brings.
Starring: Maika Monroe,
Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Zovatto,
Jake Weary, Olivia Luccardi
and Lili Sepe
GET OUT [2017]
Director Jordon Peele tackles
the timely issue of racerelations
with great depth,
sophistication and some truly
jolting scenes in Get Out. It
is an insightful look at black
male paranoia and the story
revolves around African-
American photographer Chris
Washington (Daniel Kaluuya)
whose white girlfriend,
Rose, invites him to her
family estate. The posh white
neighbourhood’s attitude
towards him is baffling and the
reactions from the only other
black people there intense.
Levity comes by way of Chris’
friend Rod Williams, a TSA
Officer whose phone calls to
Chris provide comic relief.
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya,
Allison Williams, Bradley
Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones,
Stephen Root, Lakeith Stanfield,
Catherine Keene
THE BABADOOK [2014]
A supernatural film by first-time
director Jennifer Kent, this taut
Australian film focuses in on single
mother Amelia as she struggles to
manage her young son, Samuel.
Things take a dark and discomfiting
turn when a creepy pop-up book
featuring a creature called the
Babadook turns up. This strange
top hat-wearing shadowy figure
announces his arrival with a knock
at the door that goes “babadoook
dook dook” and who will haunt your
house if you open your door to him.
In Amelia’s world of paranoia and
anxiety that door isn’t necessarily
a physical one and the Babadook
may well be a creature of her own
making. In an industry where scares
are usually dished out by monsters
and vampires, this interesting tale
delivers a satisfying tension without
having to rely on the usual tropes.
Starring: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman,
Daniel Henshall, Hayley McElhinney,
Barbara West and Ben Winspear
CURATED BY TRACY CELINE
Our Pick...
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN [2008]
An adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s romantic horror novel of the same name (he is also the
film’s screenplay writer), this teenage vampire love story-cum-revenge fantasy takes place in cold
icy Sweden. Young love blooms not long after new neighbour Eli steps up for Oskar against a group
of bullies who has been tormenting him. Little does he know Eli isn’t a normal girl but one whose
unending thirst must be sated with blood that her father/master Hakan collects by killing young men.
This aspect of the relationship is a metaphor for that of a parent’s often imperfect effort to raise a
child. Suitably chilling, Let The Right One In is ghoulish and dismal.
Starring: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Ika Nord, Peter Carlberg
TM | JULY/AUGUST 2018
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