This low-budget Aussie horror film THE KILLING GROUNDS is getting rave reviews overseas:
Australian movies are often so much more real, brutal… startlingly hardcore to the core.. This movie seems the same. For as much lavish praise that the film is getting, it is also receiving this:
Critics have been quick to praise the fact that the violence in Killing Ground(although brutal) is never exploitative, something Power attributes to his time as a censor. “I’ve definitely had a long professional interest in how we watch violence. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t just a violent film but a film about violence and what violence does.”
Power feels movie violence is often — wrongly — presented as a heroic option.
“I wanted the film to ask the question ‘What would happen in real life? What would actually happen if I was faced with this threat?’ Because the answer is often different to what happens in the movies. This violence feels very real and I think that’s what people are responding to.”
I think back to one of the most famous Aussie films in my life: FORTRESS. As a kid, and to this day, that movie scared the wits out of me more than anything made in America.
This new movie seems like to could be the same:
What sets Killing Ground apart from other thrillers is its unconventional structure. The film intertwines three separate stories, seemingly in different times and spaces: Two lovers on a weekend getaway; a family in peril and a pair of redneck psychopaths baying for blood.