Truly Dreadful Film

Great Film overall

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

There are many torture movies out there. Some are just brutal, some actually have a story, and some are just pointless torture flicks. This one has somewhat of a story. But unlike most torture films this one not only has a story about the main character but also somewhat of a comical side story about a friend of the main character which has only slight connections to the main character but nothing to do with the main story line. This movie is very entertaining though. I had many parts that I found funny, and many parts that made me cringe.

Looks can be deceiving. I had this movie at the top of my watchlist for about five years and finally watched it. I had heard it was good but always avoided it for some reason. Now, I've seen it and things will never be the same again! A major balls-to-the-wall Aussie horror joyride, hang on to something, anything, because when it takes off it never stops! The lead villainess, Lola, is someone you don't root for, at all, you keep hoping for her violent demise, she's just that EVIL! Highly recommended, tons of twists and shocks and all that fun stuff, I audibly gasped several times and howled in surprise too. More like this, please!

The Loved Ones was a film that I went into blind. As someone who usually doesn't find too much enjoyment in torture porn-films, I was pleasantly surprised to find an uncommon amount of character and excellent acting, along with the aforementioned merciless barbarism. While the characters aren't anything to write home about, they were realized with a surprising amount of efficiency. We never entirely understand the motives of the characters, but in this case, it doesn't make the film any less enjoyable. All of the characters are quite flawed and all of their imperfections are made clear through interesting, and often disturbing, interactions. The characters were surprisingly dimensional for a movie like this, and that was mostly thanks to the performances. Robin McLeavy, in particular, was uncompromisingly sinister. Despite being a teenage girl, it was not hard to despise her character, which is important for the main villain. The violence is nightmarishly sadistic, and as the film reaches one narrative twist after another, it only grows more intense, as does our thirst for revenge. You never quite know where the plot is going, and each new horrifying development feels like a punch to the gut. The film doesn't waste time either. We're thrust into the nightmare quite early, giving the feeling of sickness in our stomach time to linger. Moments of dark comedy also work to make the experience strangely amusing. Despite the rather polished main plot line, there is a secondary strand of narrative that feels unnecessary and frankly pointless. It never goes anywhere and only seems to be there for something to cut to when the audience needs a break from the cruelty. The Loved Ones repeatedly batters the audience with it's stomach-churning violence. The plot takes many sharp narrative turns, and while it's not always enjoyable to watch a film so unflinchingly deranged, it's certainly invigorating, up until our thirst for revenge is so satisfyingly quenched.

After reading the rave reviews from this film's rabid fan base, I was really looking forward to watching it. Unfortunately I found nothing special about this movie, actually I thought it was pretty boring. In general this movie tries too hard to be different. It feels like that kid in high school that WANTS everybody to think he's weird just to get attention. If you're not a true hardcore horror fan over 15 years old, this movie won't be for you. The acting is horrible, I would say "bright eyes" gets the best actress nod here. The special fx makeup is alright. The plot is not great, like I said before it tries too hard to be sadistic and it shows. And God-the stupid hipster soundtrack was more torture to me than what the main character had to endure. This isn't horror folks, it's a bad attempt to be artsy and twisted. Save your time and watch "I saw the devil" if torture and gore is what you're looking for. This movie is easily forgettable, thankfully.