The Loved Ones – Review

The Loved Ones is set in rural Australia, in a small town which could be anywhere. The film opens up with Brent (Xavier Samuel) and his father driving, the pair joking around. While on the road, a bloodied man stumbled in front of them which causes a devastating car accident. Fast-forward six months, and Brent and his mate Sac (Richard Wilson) are preparing to go to the school dance. Sac asks out his dream girl Mia (Jessica McNamee), while Brent gets asked by strange girl Lola (Robin McLeavy). He turns her down as he has a girlfriend Holly (Victoria Thaine), but this does not sit too well with Lola, who with the help of her father (John Brumpton) kidnap Brent in order to have their own night of fun.

There is more to this then meets the eye, we find out from the get go that Brent is a very troubled boy. The crash from the beginning of the film has repercussions for him, including a death which he feels responsible for. He hasn’t gotten over this event, and since has become a cutter and wonders off on his own from time to time. As he does wonder off before the dance, this is the perfect opportunity for his abduction. Brent’s mother is worried she can’t get in touch with him, and Holly shows up and the pair call the local police. During their own investigation, some of Brent’s belongings are found, they try to piece the day together and figure out what might have happened.

What unfolds before us is a very sick and twisted pairing of father and daughter, and the sick games they play. Lola is quite simply a crazy psycho! They have kidnapped Brent for what seems like a date, he’s tied up at the table, they have dressed him up and Lola and her father are also dressed up. Someone else is with them who appears to have been lobotomized, whether it is Lola’s mother or not isn’t entirely made clear. But what is clear is just how demented these people are, and things are not looking well for Brent. It seems no matter what he does, things are going to get worse, but how deep does this all go? Quite deep in fact, not to give too much more away but Brent isn’t the first victim of these two, and what has become of previous victims is truly frightening.

This film gets props for firstly giving us some real and likable characters. Brent is a troubled guy but that does not make him a bad one. He does right by his girlfriend, while struggling with the events from his past. He wants to get on with things (that is how I understood it) but his mother has become over protective and this he finds frustrating. Holly is a beautiful girl, she seems to really care for her boyfriend and for the short time we see her, I really liked her. Brent’s friend Sac seemed like the typical high school guy we all knew, however his presence in the film seemed to be more of a distraction then anything else. Brent was a character you could easily get behind and care for, I certainly didn’t want to see any harm come to to him. So when things went bad, I really felt it, and I felt it hard! Lola and her father were two of the most demented characters I have seen in a film for some time, they were actually really convincing and they frightened me! It is easy for performances like this to become solely silly and comical, but Robin McLeavy and John Brumpton managed to make jet black in humor and frightening at the same time.

Performance wise everyone was on top of their game, with Robin McLeavy being the stand out as Lola. I mean this girl was on fire, she managed to be cute yet extremely creepy and crazy all at the same time. I believed everything she did, and everything she had to say, and if I were in Brent’s position I would have prayed for death. It takes a great performance to pull this off and she really delivered. Give this girl more roles, she has the potential to be another break out Australian star. Xavier Samuel had a tough role and he pulled it off, he was likable as I mentioned and he made every single thing that happened to him really hurt. The amount of torture his character goes through is terrible and he didn’t let up for a second. I can’t imagine that role would have been easy and props go to him for doing this. I have a feeling he will break out as a star as he has been in Twilight: Eclipse and has an up coming role in Twilight: Breaking Dawn. And good for him too, because he really deserves it, from what I saw here he’s a great actor. John Brumpton was as sick and twisted as they come, a great performance from him in this role. He was damn scary, he could have been the distant cousin of Mick Taylor (from Wolf Creek). As I said before the father and daughter roles were played perfectly, and they worked. These two had the perfect chemistry together, couldn’t have asked for anything better. Victoria Thaine was good as well, as were the other supporting players, but this film belonged to those main three.

As a horror film I did find this to be right up my alley, it was so twisted and sick to start with. It had some fantastic gore scenes, they were gross and at times I actually almost turned away. It all was very well done and quite realistic too, which I appreciate because when it looks fake it can really ruin the mood. The small country town Australia setting works so well for something like this because there is so much isolation, no body can hear you scream out there. This film made fantastic use of colour and the sets, I really liked it a lot. Sean Byrne took a lot of inspiration from films like Misery, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and even Carrie and put a different spin on them. Where the film failed I think we had a sub-plot with Sac which seemed like it was going somewhere, but in the end it didn’t have much pay-off. But otherwise this is a great film and a nice addition to the genre, it is a unique film. It is refreshing to see something that is not a remake nor a sequel (prequel).

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