CHARLIE'S FARM
Australia, 2014, 93 minutes, Colour.
Tara Reid, David Beamish, Sam Coward, Madeleine Kennedy, Nathan Jones, Bill Moseley, Kane Hodder, Genna Chanelle Hayes, Trudy Ross, Allira Jacques.
Directed by Chris Sun.
This is one of several Australian horror films written and directed by Chris Sun. He also directed Boar.
The film is clearly targeting horror audiences, creating the situation with a haunted house, a demented killer roaming the house and countryside, urban legends about the house of the murders, two couples brashly investigating the house, another touring couple arriving, the buildup to the confrontation. The film does take advantage of storytelling by one of the couples, enabling elaborate visual flashbacks to the original story, murders and gore…
The framework of the story is effective enough, the story of the 1980s, the warning of the old men in the pub against going to the farm, the detailed flashbacks, the menace and confrontation, but there is a difficulty with the central characters.
David Beamish and Sam Coward portray two very ocker Australian men, brash (and too frequently stupid), deciding to go on and adventure to investigate Charlie’s farm, not taking any notice of warnings, telling the story with embellishments to frighten the two girlfriends who decide to accompany them – what exactly is still a bit of a puzzle!
The two women are played by Madeline Kennedy an American Tara Reid (in between her appearances in the number of Sharknado films).
There are sufficient warnings for the men not to go, only increasing their wilful determination, the women having bad feelings about the place and their experiences. Then, Nathan Jones appears, a giant of a man, the grown-up version of a young boy, mentally handicapped, witness to his parents’ murdering of backpackers (and cannibalism), saved by his mother from the rather vigil anti-policy confronting the parents.
Which means that the latter part of the film consists of eerie situations, pursuit of each of the characters and their deaths – all of them!
