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And her later portrayal as a victim is as poignant as it is chilling. As Vicky, her self-righteous brattiness before her abduction is relatable to anyone who was ever in high school. This works, in a large part, because of the players. Hounds of Love is a psychological thriller where the emphasis is on the psychological. The bulk of the film is about how these people relate to one another and how they react to one another. His interest, and by extension, his audience’s interest, is on the characters. Instead of focusing on what is involved, his camera is centered on who is involved. Young makes this less of a tale about a kidnapping and more a narrative about people. The director is playing on audience expectations, not twisting the story so much as weaving through it.īut the story is secondary.

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But Vicky makes a series of poor choices and seals her fate. He gives Vicky opportunity after opportunity to escape. Despite this, Young keeps the scene tense. When the scene happens, when Vicky rebelliously goes out on the night streets alone, when Evelyn and John White pull alongside her in their brown station wagon, the audience knows what happens next. The audience knows that Vicky is the next one to be kidnapped. The scene, the character introductions, and even the foreshadowing is very obvious and direct.įor example, after showing the initial abduction of the unidentified high school girl, the main character of Vicky Maloney is introduced. He puts the pieces of his story in place as one would set-up a chess board.

He seems to know that his audience knows that too because his approach is straightforward. And while director Ben Young’s take on the genre certainly plays to traditional themes, his overall approach feels fresh and distinct. Kidnapping is a horrific truth of humankind.

The girl gets in the car.Ībduction dramas are likely as old as storytelling itself. The girls disembark and one walks home alone.

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The driver and passenger watch the girls in silence. A brown station wagon drives beyond the fence. High school girls throw a ball on a playground. The film opens in suburban Perth, Australia, during the mid-1980s. From the onset, Hounds of Love lets its viewers know that they are in for a rough time.

Hounds of love movie review