Though their actions thrust the story forward, it’s the complicated motivations of female perpetrators of horrific deeds - especially those committing their acts as part of a destructive, manipulative partnership - that remain Young’s specific source of interest.Īs Evelyn White (Emma Booth) peers at high school netball players with her husband John (Stephen Curry), successfully lures one into their car to escape the scorching Western Australian heat, and later dutifully makes coffee and toast in the aftermath of an unseen altercation, the imbalance of power at their heart of their long-term relationship is painfully apparent. Set in Perth in 1987, the film focuses on the aftermath of a murderous couple’s abduction of a teenager on a steamy summer evening. That Hounds of Love confidently emerges from its thematic predecessor’s shadow should help its global fortunes at festivals and beyond, with an Australian release already planned for early 2017. It also follows in the footsteps of Justin Kurzel’s internationally acclaimed Snowtown, mainly in its masterfully discomforting aesthetics. Premiering in Venice Days, Young’s debut finds inspiration for its domestic discontent in a range of real-life local and international cases (nodding to its true-crime stimulus, an early scene references the famed, still-unsolved disappearance of Australian prime minister Harold Holt in the 1960s). Hounds of Love marks Young as a filmmaker to watch, though he’s not the feature’s only standout Making his first feature after a string of shorts and music videos, writer/director Ben Young parlays his gripping peek at the perils waiting behind closed doors into more than just another crime-oriented effort.
However, something particularly unsettling skulks beneath the sun-lit surface of thriller Hounds Of Love.
The sinister side of suburbia isn’t a novel topic of contemplation in Australian cinema as Animal Kingdom and Suburban Mayhem have proven, the danger that lurks in ordinary rows of average-looking homes is becoming as common a fascination as the menace of the outback.