Summary
An atmospheric bubble of slow-building tension, completely playing into tropes while quietly subverting them. The expansive Australian bush has rarely been this claustrophobic.
There is something inherently Gothic about the Australian landscape. The expansive reds and the seemingly impenetrable bushlands have served to cast an eerie light over everything from Picnic at Hanging Rock to The Babadook. Damien Power’s KILLING GROUND wields the outdoors like a scalpel in this understated thriller.
Power’s screenplay is structured like three branches of mystery tree. Ian (Ian Meadows) and Sam (Harriet Dyer) take a trip to a remote campsite to celebrate New Year’s. They find an abandoned tent and begin to worry about the family. That family gets the spotlight in another strand of the story, as we see the parents of a teenage daughter and an infant come to their own dawning horror. Tying the two pieces together are the characters of German (Aaron Pedersen) and Chook (Aaron Glenane), bush hunters who are more than meets the eye.
While it may be easy to compare this to modern staples like Wolf Creek, writer/director Power’s film distinguishes itself by the incredible amount of restraint it shows. At one point, the hunters point out that chasing their prey is not the ideal scenario: “You set a trap, and let them come to you.” This is precisely what Power does with his audience, laying down pieces and slowly bringing them together for maximum impact.
There is violence and there is an element of horror, but the vast majority of it occurs off screen. Indeed, Power mercifully holds back on showing us the initial violation of the aforementioned family unit, instead showing us the aftermath of the violence and letting our imaginations run wild. In another scene, an infant is glimpsed wandering around in the background, and you can almost hear your inner voice screaming for the protagonists to turn around.
The tension is all underscored by Leah Curtis’ original music, which atmospherically echoes around an expansive bushland that cinematographer Simon Chapman (Joe Cinque’s Consolation, The Wrong Girl) showcases as alternatively endless and claustrophobic. More importantly, Curtis knows when not to use music, heightening the tension of a “William Tell” style shooting sequences that will have you white-knuckling your way to the end.
When KILLING GROUND does fall back on more traditional horror tropes, including a climax that falls heavily into ‘final girl’ territory, it is often to offer audiences a glimmer of hope before dashing them just as quickly. With terrific turns from Dyer and Pedersen in particular, the latter subverting his Mystery Road/Goldstone anti-hero persona conclusively, this is a film that will linger with you after the credits roll.
