I found this film at a Redbox location, on a busy night when most other horror films were already taken. Only having the cover art to look at, I thought it looked like an interesting concept. What I didn't know is that this movie was made in Australia and not the US or UK. Having seen a few decent Aussie movies (The Tunnel Movie, Storm Warning, Red Hill), I have become accustomed to the greater length of time films made there take to develop their plots. U.S. made movies tend to reward the instant gratification expectations of their audiences, so learning a degree of patience with Australian made movies is helpful.
We start out looking at two similar sets of characters, both parents of a young child. The director skillfully takes us back and forth between them, slowly revealing the common thread that ties them together. What we learn is that a mother loses her young son to kidnappers, then loses her husband in the stressful weeks that follow in their hopes for their son's safe return. What remains is literally a person with nothing left to lose, so she methodically seeks out the identity of her son's kidnapper. She is brought together with the other couple of a young child through not only the help of an innocent looking elderly couple, but with some shady looking enforcer types who intimidate and injure the second couple. We find out that the mother in the second couple is the kidnapper of the child of the first couple, and then an intense psychological battle ensues.
All of the what has been previously described works beautifully when you are sitting in the audience, and kudos to the director for carefully laying out the pieces to the puzzle. But once both of the mothers remain as the dominant characters, the script unfortunately falls apart. Caterina, the mother of the kidnapped and subsequently murdered child, repeatedly asks Winona, the kidnapper and murder, for an explanation of why her son had to be the one taken. While there are many directions a decent screenwriter could have gone here, the one that was unfortunately chosen was Winona's explanation of an everpresent demon who forced her, and dozens of seemingly normal women through past generations, suddenly flip and murder their families.
So after all the intensity and desire for revenge, we in the audience are finally given the explanation for Winona's heinous crime: The devil made me do it. A big disappointment, to say the least. The movie correctly errs on the side of caution in its denouement, punishing both Caterina and Winona, but leaving the two remaining innocents, Winona's husband and daughter, unharmed. But what a waste of a promising idea, which successfully draws the audience in until the final scenes.
We start out looking at two similar sets of characters, both parents of a young child. The director skillfully takes us back and forth between them, slowly revealing the common thread that ties them together. What we learn is that a mother loses her young son to kidnappers, then loses her husband in the stressful weeks that follow in their hopes for their son's safe return. What remains is literally a person with nothing left to lose, so she methodically seeks out the identity of her son's kidnapper. She is brought together with the other couple of a young child through not only the help of an innocent looking elderly couple, but with some shady looking enforcer types who intimidate and injure the second couple. We find out that the mother in the second couple is the kidnapper of the child of the first couple, and then an intense psychological battle ensues.
All of the what has been previously described works beautifully when you are sitting in the audience, and kudos to the director for carefully laying out the pieces to the puzzle. But once both of the mothers remain as the dominant characters, the script unfortunately falls apart. Caterina, the mother of the kidnapped and subsequently murdered child, repeatedly asks Winona, the kidnapper and murder, for an explanation of why her son had to be the one taken. While there are many directions a decent screenwriter could have gone here, the one that was unfortunately chosen was Winona's explanation of an everpresent demon who forced her, and dozens of seemingly normal women through past generations, suddenly flip and murder their families.
So after all the intensity and desire for revenge, we in the audience are finally given the explanation for Winona's heinous crime: The devil made me do it. A big disappointment, to say the least. The movie correctly errs on the side of caution in its denouement, punishing both Caterina and Winona, but leaving the two remaining innocents, Winona's husband and daughter, unharmed. But what a waste of a promising idea, which successfully draws the audience in until the final scenes.