The Loved Ones

Directed by: Sean Byrne

Release Date: 2009

A friend lent this to me (fellow horror fan) and the only things mentioned were that the ending was a cop out and that it was a low budget film from Australia. I didn't have an inkling of the plot. Upon watching the movie, I was left with...ennui. Why am I watching horror movies again?


The plot reminded me of Tamara and also a short story I wrote myself about a girl rejected by her best friend. Real brief: boy's father (spoiler alert!) dies in a car crash while he is driving, boy becomes emo and cuts himself, boy has hot girlfriend who drives (and mom is weary of cars forever), boy is asked out by homely girl but politely declines because he has the hot girlfriend, boy is kidnapped by homely girl's father and is tortured. There is more but that's the gist. Does he make it out alive? I won't provide any spoilers if you, kind reader, are actually interested in watching the end result.

Honestly, the torture part of this movie was too much for this viewer. It probably won't be (or any movie) the movie to make me throw in the towel for the genre but I found it difficult to care about the story. There wasn't anything particularly novel this story was saying. I can see how anybody who has ever been rejected can sort of relate to our crazy torturer (or not) but as a human being, I don't see why she had to do it in the first place. She wasn't even unattractive, ya know? When she put on that prom dress, she was a little hottie. Perhaps that wasn't the point. The point was she was rejected and she had to have this boy; she just Had To, and she did. Daddy made it happen for her. Oh the Daddy issues. There is something going on in this film but that thing didn't stick for me. But I'm jaded so that's just me. "The medium is the message" here for me. Adding torture to a film is not going to make me watch.

Verdict: At your own risk.

Sound off in the comments. If you've seen it, what did you like about it? I'm interested.