Vicki Maloney is randomly abducted from a suburban street by a disturbed couple. As she observes the dynamic between her captors she quickly realises she must drive a wedge between them if she is to survive.
Director:
Ben Young
Stars:
Emma Booth,
Ashleigh Cummings,
Stephen Curry
Teenagers Zach and Josh have been best friends their whole lives, but when a gruesome accident leads to a cover-up, the secret drives a wedge between them and propels them down a rabbit hole of escalating paranoia and violence.
Director:
Kevin Phillips
Stars:
Owen Campbell,
Charlie Tahan,
Elizabeth Cappuccino
A passionate holiday romance leads to an obsessive relationship, when an Australian photojournalist wakes one morning in a Berlin apartment and is unable to leave.
Director:
Cate Shortland
Stars:
Teresa Palmer,
Max Riemelt,
Matthias Habich
Secure within a desolate home as an unnatural threat terrorizes the world, a man has established a tenuous domestic order with his wife and son. Then a desperate young family arrives seeking refuge.
Director:
Trey Edward Shults
Stars:
Joel Edgerton,
Christopher Abbott,
Carmen Ejogo
A group of friends join a guide for a trek into the Bolivian jungle, searching for an Indian village. The men soon realize that the jungle is a difficult place to be.
Director:
Greg McLean
Stars:
Daniel Radcliffe,
Alex Russell,
Thomas Kretschmann
While trying to spice up their marriage in their remote lake house, Jessie must fight to survive when her husband dies unexpectedly, leaving her handcuffed to their bed frame.
Director:
Mike Flanagan
Stars:
Carla Gugino,
Bruce Greenwood,
Chiara Aurelia
A teenage Leatherface escapes from a mental hospital with three other inmates, kidnapping a young nurse and taking her on a road trip from hell, while being pursued by a lawman out for revenge.
For an hour and a half thriller, Killing Ground is a real slog, and
it's not until you reach it's last act that you realize why. It also
probably explains why the movie has gotten some real raves (and some
real pans).
On the surface, it tries in vain to put a fresh face on the Psycho
Hillbilly From Hell movie. Killing Ground plays with time quite a bit
in the first half of the film, sometimes to good effect in building
suspense. Sometimes this backfires and convolutes scenes, as when the
same character appears in two scenes back to back at different points
in time. Hey, I love when filmmakers mix things up, but it's also a
fragile ethos. When it backfires, it just draws attention to itself.
A lot of Killing Ground is like this. I found myself pondering film-
critic-type questions (not a good sign) between checking my watch, such
as "What is this film trying to achieve and what's it doing
differently?" The answers are "I doubt if the filmmakers really know"
and "Not much".
If you strip away all the stylized artifice, the competent acting, the
technically good filmmaking, what do we really have here? Well, you
basically have a slicker "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" slanted to tweak the
emotions of the Middle Class (add yuppie heroes, add tykes in danger)
or "Wolf Creek" with some really stupid villains (sorry, sadistic does
not equal interesting).
None of the characters in Killing Ground are really very interesting,
if you get down to it. Maybe that's not important to you, and with a
strict thriller, it's not a requirement. Are the human characters in
Evil Dead very interesting? Hell no. But with Sam Raimi bringing the
freshness, who cares? Even Eden Lake (which has a very similar plot)
brought villains with a slightly fresher edge.
Does Killing Ground just stink? No, it's a competent if not overly
manipulative knock-off posing as an arty thriller. And that's just a
little to ingenuous for me.
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Paul Scheer discusses The Disaster Artist and his love of awesomely bad movies. Plus, we dive into the origins of midnight movies and explore how The Room became a cult classic.
For an hour and a half thriller, Killing Ground is a real slog, and it's not until you reach it's last act that you realize why. It also probably explains why the movie has gotten some real raves (and some real pans).
On the surface, it tries in vain to put a fresh face on the Psycho Hillbilly From Hell movie. Killing Ground plays with time quite a bit in the first half of the film, sometimes to good effect in building suspense. Sometimes this backfires and convolutes scenes, as when the same character appears in two scenes back to back at different points in time. Hey, I love when filmmakers mix things up, but it's also a fragile ethos. When it backfires, it just draws attention to itself.
A lot of Killing Ground is like this. I found myself pondering film- critic-type questions (not a good sign) between checking my watch, such as "What is this film trying to achieve and what's it doing differently?" The answers are "I doubt if the filmmakers really know" and "Not much".
If you strip away all the stylized artifice, the competent acting, the technically good filmmaking, what do we really have here? Well, you basically have a slicker "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" slanted to tweak the emotions of the Middle Class (add yuppie heroes, add tykes in danger) or "Wolf Creek" with some really stupid villains (sorry, sadistic does not equal interesting).
None of the characters in Killing Ground are really very interesting, if you get down to it. Maybe that's not important to you, and with a strict thriller, it's not a requirement. Are the human characters in Evil Dead very interesting? Hell no. But with Sam Raimi bringing the freshness, who cares? Even Eden Lake (which has a very similar plot) brought villains with a slightly fresher edge.
Does Killing Ground just stink? No, it's a competent if not overly manipulative knock-off posing as an arty thriller. And that's just a little to ingenuous for me.