Wound

Horrorphile

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Wound

March 21st 2011 01:04

Prepare to be injured and confused, assaulted and abused. Prepare to be pushed out of your comfort zone. Prepare to be confounded, amused, and astounded. Prepare to have salt rubbed into the wound. Maverick director David Blyth, a Kiwi filmmaker who ultimately prefers nocturnes to matinees, has returned to his dark roots; the fractured foundations of ruined relationships where damaged souls tread with bruised footsteps on the spoiled earth where the blood seeps deep down into. Wound (2010) takes no prisoners, and doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

Wound is a gaping, rancorous gash where the mind and body are laid bare and violated; a nightmare paradise for psychosexual fetishists.

Kate O'Rourke as Susan

Susan (Kate O’Rourke) has some seriously heavy baggage. She lives alone; her only friend is her compulsive-obsessive disorder that sees her wrapping her own faeces in tinfoil and storing them in a large freezer. She seeks attrition for her sins by playing out the role of servant in a domestic S&M game with Master John (Campbell Cooley). But it is the arrival of her estranged father Neil (Brendan Gregory) that provides Susan with a long-burning opportunity for horrific retribution via a baseball bat and a pair of scissors.

Te Kaea Beri as Tanya

Meanwhile Susan’s teenaged daughter Tanya (Te Kaea Beri) appears to be struggling at school and with maternal rejection. She is determined to find and confront her biological mother, even if it kills her. And find her she does, which sets off a blistering and very messy series of incidents culminating with a devastating revelation for both Tanya and Susan. But not before many tears are spilled, blood spurted, and other bodily fluids released. As the movie’s tagline states, “Some wounds never heal.” David Blyth prefers them to fester.

Tanya with fetish club owner Mistress Ruth (Sandy Lowe)

Blyth has run the career gauntlet as a director, grappling with the kudos and curse of possessing cult appeal, disappearing into the wilderness, emerging with scabs, picking them, and watching the blood seep with dark fascination. His best movies deal unapologetically with the themes of social disease, mental illness, madness, abuse, dysfunction, and attempts at healing. He made New Zealand’s first genuine horror movie, Death Warmed Up (1984), a low-budget splatter-punk flick that garnered much underground acclaim internationally.

Wound sees David Blyth return to the nefarious and tenebrous regions of the human psyche under pressure; and with a low-budget indie movie Blyth has been able to indulge himself to the point of aural and visual abstraction and much contention (protesters in NZ tried to have the movie banned). Succinctly put; Wound is a high art movie for the deep trash heads. It will provoke and irritate your base desires and fears, it will shock and titillate with its audacity and perversity, but not in ways you’d expect. Wound is not slick, but it shines in the pale moonlight. Wound is not pleasant, but it scratches an itch. Wound is an attempt at psychological surgery through the medium of cinema narrative.

Blood is tastier than water

fetish nightmare

The supernatural collides with the unnatural, and reality suffers as a result. One is never sure just what is happening inside Susan’s mind, and what is happening for real. Is Tanya a figment of Susan’s crippled sanity, or is she a desperately lost soul searching aggressively for a maternal anchor? David Blyth throws everything into his cauldron and stirs the pot like the warlock that he is. He’s sick of the waiting room; he’s spent his life in the waiting room … he wants to operate. And as the freight trains hurtle through the darkness of the night, whistles blowing their haunted demon call, the wound that is Susan’s guilt, the wound that is Tanya’s wrath, the wound that is Susan’s madness, the wound that is Tanya’s pain, the nasty wound born of incest and abandonment rears its ugly twin-heads and spits in the face of good taste and easy answers.

Wound Omar Al-Sobky, Kate O'Rourke, Andy Sophocleous

Susan is taken into custody by a Crisis Team

Wound is a dark, often disturbing, probe into one woman’s psychological realm and the real world surrounding it. Blyth jars his audience with some extreme, sometimes graphic, but powerful imagery. Yet he juxtaposes it, especially in the movie's second half, with striking poetic use of warm colour and soft focus. The score and soundscape is excellent, and Kate O’Rourke’s candid performance is surprisingly affecting, and newcomer Te Kaea Beri commands attention. Wound occupies a nightmarish sub-space; enter at your own risk, leave your sensibilities with the gimp at the door, and you will be slapped and forsaken, with Wound leaving its indelible mark, for better or for worse.

Here’s the trailer:

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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Comments

5 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by David O'Connell

March 22nd 2011 02:42

20/20 Filmsight
Screen Fanatic

This sounds seriously fucked up..........................I love it!

Great piece of writing too Bryn.

Comment by JMD

March 23rd 2011 22:07

Well I just recently saw A Serbian Film. Is this film as disturbing or more so? It certainly sounds like it.

Comment by Bryn

March 23rd 2011 22:42

Horrorphile

JMD, can't answer that question because I haven't seen A Serbian Film yet. It hasn't been released in Australia, and if it does probably in a cut version.

Comment by Hartwig

March 24th 2011 11:14

Damnit! This movie looks promising. A lot of great horror flicks seem to be coming out from Australia /Oceania.
But will we ever be able to these movies in cinemas cross Europe (I´m living in Austria!)? Cáuse we´re mainly flooded with boring remakes of old Hollywood thrillers and the umpteenth successor of some horor movie series a la Saw 1 until infinitely.
BTW:I really enjoy your blog,Bryn!

Comment by Bryn

March 24th 2011 21:38

Horrorphile

Hi Hartwig, not sure if Wound will get a proper release in Austria ... Check imdb.com
It played the international festival circuit however. You may have to keep an eye out for its DVD release and order it online.
Cheers for the props!

[ Previous - Wilderness ]

[ Next - And Soon the Darkness (2010) ]