A weekend camping trip to the beach turns into a battle for survival in this from Australian writer/director Damien Power. Ian (Ian Meadow) and Samantha (Harriet Dyer) head off for a camping trip in the hopes that the time together away from the city will allow them time to heal their relationship. When they arrive at the remote camping ground they find another tent erected, but it looks abandoned. Then Ian and Sam stumble across an abandoned child and discover a murder scene. They become hunted by a pair of psychopathic hunters (Aaron Pedersen) and Aaron Glenane. This is the debut feature film for Power, a short film maker whose Peekaboo screened at the St Kilda Film Festival a couple of years ago. The initial inspiration for the film came from a vision Power had of an orange tent in the middle of nowhere, but it has taken him a decade to flesh out the concept and bring it to the screen. Power cites films like Straw Dogs and Michael Haneke's Funny Games as influences on the film, although this is not quite as compelling nor as unsettling with its depiction of violence. The film has been nicely shot on location at Macquarie Fields, outside of Sydney, by Simon Chapman (The Devil's Candy, etc). Power brings some tension to the frantic chase through the bush land. Power uses a nonlinear narrative style that moves back and forth, slowly revealing the fate of the first family, which adds a frisson of tension to the material. Cast against type Pedersen is quite menacing here, while Glenane (Deadline Gallipoli, etc) is quite scary as Chook, the small town psychopath.
Review of Killing Ground
