No. 73 (2021) COMING HOME IN THE DARK AUGUST 31st.

 

Film No. 73 (2021)  August 31st.  6:45 PM   Cinema 1   LUNA,  Leederville. 

"It's amazing how a little bit of music can lighten the mood?" (Mandrake tries to calm the atmosphere which has become tense, mainly by his doing, to say the least).

Well known to New Zealand audiences, mainly as an actor, James Ashcroft directs his first feature film, COMING HOME IN THE DARK. He has been heard to express his ambition for what he'd like audiences to take away from his film. His aim here is to get under people's skins. Did he succeed in my case? No, but there are a few scenes that creeped me out. 

We meet an everyday family made up of Hoagie (Erik Thomson), Jill (Miriama McDowell) and their teenage sons Maika (Billy Paratene) and Jordan (Frankie Paratene). They are on a camping trip in wind-swept New Zealand. Of course we know that the film is meant to shock, but the rate at which events turn for the worse surprised me. Enter star performer Daniel Gilles playing Mandrake along with his brooding off-sider Matthias Luafutu as Tubbs. They mean to do harm, we are never in doubt of that, but are their motives random? And does Jill, the only female lead, hold an emotional edge over these fragile males? 

The real creepiness of this film lays in the atmosphere. The New Zealand landscape on cold, dreary days might just dampen the spirits of many a person. When those conditions become the back-drop for dastardly things to happen, an environment like the one on screen, dark feelings become front of mind. With 50% of the shoot taking place in a moving vehicle, with a dark exterior, the hum of tyre on road and the bulk of the script slowly un-packing the story, Ashcroft has injected an unnerving style into COMING HOME. 

This hard-arsed genre, done well, is being lorded by studios right now. Ashcroft has been lured towards two major projects since COMING HOME debuted at Sundance 2021. Execs' with a keen eye for what sells were impressed with Ashcroft's first feature. It is stylish, it is creepy and is getting under the skins' of many. The film should be admired for those qualities. 9GUMS.