A brilliant film that helped define a genre

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

A Couple months back I caught the opening premiere along with the Q&A with the cast and crew of this Indie Aussie horror film. Playing out like a disorientating nightmare you can't wake up from, its one of those caught in a time loop narratives. A very similar style to Christopher Smith's mindscrew "Triangle", but early on, you kind of pick up on this foreseeable story device. It doesn't take much to understand where it's heading, but putting the pieces together was a different story.A college couple travelling Germany takes a turn for the worse when their car breaks down on a lonely, scenic country road late one night, and to add to the stress and confusion is the discovery of a dead body. In the distance, they can see flickering house lights, which they head towards, but what awaits inside this living space is a horrific past wanting to destroy them. The story arc goes about putting the couple into a magnetic vortex shared with a scary dead German SS officer and his family, as the pieces of this horrid mystery starts coming together. In the middle of nowhere, locked in a house, moving from room to room picking up on communicative hints from beyond the grave to what's going on, and what transpired in the homestead's past. Where the journey's destination is damned to history repeating itself, and there's no escaping it.How the script tries to connect everything can be slightly jaded, at times the pace can grind and it sort of recycles ideas, but I was invested in its universe where its bizarre and sinister atmospherics are effectively brought across. Watching the lead antagonist - a suitably unnerving Andy McPhee in ghastly make-up prosthetics - causing the couple to always look over their shoulders, or psychically and mentally putting the couple through the ringer by torturing them in a few surprise moments; who knew just how creative you could be using a swastika. Oh, the sickening aftermath scene inspired by the nazi symbol, *snap*, *snap*, *snap* and *snap*, will make you cringe by the sight of it. Gotta say, the practical gore FX are used to great effect. No cgi here.The scares, of a haunted house variety, are systematically done (if too systematic) from moving objects, whispering voices to shots of dead kids materialising and disappearing with frenetic editing, foretelling premonitions flooding the screen in quick bursts and dark, shuddery lighting going hand-to-hand with ear piercing sounds FX and suggestive cinematography. Some great location work too. Sound performances from the cast in spite of the common character traits.Some story inconsistencies aside, and the standard mechanics are there amongst the creative flourishes and psychological interplay make it a well-handled production for its low-budget restraints.

A home grown psychological horror with mood and atmosphere to spare, debut feature film director Steven Spiel has delivered one of the more unique and unpredictable local offerings in some time.Based around the old Nazi regime sentiment of Lebensraum (Living Space), being the ideological principle of Nazism that provided justification for the German territorial expansion into East-Central Europe, Spiel's film is not cut from the gore-hound corner of the horror genre (even though there is some standout gore sequences thrown in for good measure) as it instead focuses on creating an ominous and impending sense of dread as college sweethearts Brad and Ashley experience a German road trip they'd rather forget.Living Space sees its central couple looking to get the most out of their time in Germany and Georgia Chara's Ashley and Leigh Scully's Brad make for a solid narrative foundation as things start to take a turn for the worse when their hire car breaks down and the enter into a house that proves anything but welcoming.From a seemingly simple set-up, Spiel takes his story to some frightening and often unseen pathways as our couple get drawn into some nightmarish like Nazi-filled Groundhog Day, culminating in some neatly attuned twists and turns that keep the viewers guessing right until the end.It's an impressive low-budget effort that suggests Spiel is a filmmaker with some genuinely unique visions and an abundance of ideas and while not everything within Living Space feels like smooth sailing, Spiel's ability to conjure up a high number of chills and thrills within the films brisk 80 minute runtime is a noteworthy feat, while Living Space's basing around real life horrors and beliefs gives it a sense of meaning that is often not to be found in similar such affairs.Final Say -A fresh and original horror trip that's likely to appeal to both local and international horror fans, Living Space is a psychological horror with a difference and while there are prevalent and to be expected drawbacks of such an independent offering, Spiel's Nazi-filled treat will crawl under your skin and stay there, making Living Space a highly impressive debut offering from the young director.3 car radios out of 5