VOD Review: The Hounds of Love (2017)

"A perfect movie for date night."

Australia has a knack for producing disturbing Horror movies. Wolf Creek, The Loved Ones and Acolytes (to name a few) are all great examples of that gritty, nasty, unsettling down under filmmaking that have stuck with us years after having seen them.

Hounds of Love can comfortably join that group of films as a movie that tackles a horrific subject in such a real and gritty way, that even though it's light on the more visceral aspect of Horror Cinema, it strikes all the right unsettling chords in telling its twisted story.

Knowing that it's based on a true story, loosely or not, made it feel extra nasty.

In 1980's era Perth, Australia, John and Evelyn watch a group of young schoolgirls playing netball in slow-motion, after which they give one of the girls a lift, and she's never seen again. They're a serial-killing couple who enjoys stalking young girls, and taking them home to "play with", and eventually kill.

CREEPERS, 80's STYLE.

Vicki is a young girl who is dealing with separated parents who plan on divorcing, as well as the everyday stresses of teenage life. When she sneaks out of her window to go to a party, she runs across John and Evelyn, who offer her some weed. Back at their house. Since she really likes weed, she agrees to go back to their house and score before meeting her boyfriend at the party... which she's never going to show up for.

THIS IS WHY YOU JUST SAY NO TO DRUGS!

Chained to a bed in a dingy room, Vicki is subjected to sexual assault and all means of degrading things at the hands of John, while Evelyn enables his depravity, and washes off the bloody dildos. While Vicki does her best to survive her ordeal and find a way out, her loved ones are madly searching for her, which seems hopeless.

True horror ensues. 

WHY IS SHE LAYING ON THE WALL?

Like most movies that involve sadistic people doing horrific things to young girls, Hounds of Love is genuinely disturbing to behold. Based on the story of real-life story of David and Catherine Birnie (read about it HERE), everything here feels real, in a very dirty, uncomfortable sort of way.

Unlike most of those kinds of movies however, Hounds of Love takes a more restrained approach. Ben Young could have easily gone the exploitative route with this one, but he instead opts for the less-is-more method when it comes to visualizing the film's nastier elements, which honestly made it play far more grimy and sinister.

While Stephen Curry plays creepy extremely well here, it's Emma Booth who turns in turns in the truly brilliant performance here as the browbeaten wife of a sadistic monster who helps him torture and rape young girls, but who also struggles with the knowledge that what they're doing is wrong. To watch her play both sides of that fence at the same time was something special. Ashleigh Cummings was no less fantastic in a difficult role which saw her victimized in horrific ways, while never losing her will to live and be free.

"WHO'S A HANDSOME BLOKE?"

Torture, bloody sheets, and violence abound, but not much in the way of gory set pieces.

DON'T WANT ANY WEED NOW, DO YOU?

Emma Booth gets naked, and there's plenty of rape and sexual degeneracy, but most of it is portrayed in a non-exploitative way off-screen. And we're more than fine with that.

NOT SEXY AT ALL.

For true Horror lovers, Hounds of Love is a Must See. It's a tough watch, and one that a great many people will not be able to make it through, but in a genre that tends to aim for the lowest common denominator with many of its offerings, it's a hypnotic, horrific, multi-layered piece of art.

And it's also the stuff of nightmares. Real ones.

A

Hounds of Love is available on VOD now.

Emma Booth and Ashleigh Cummings: the gorgeous stars of this ugly little movie.