DARK PLACE
Australia, 2019, 75 minutes, Colour/black and white.
Nelson Baker, Katie Beckett, Shakira Clanton, Bernard Curry, Jolie Everett, Charlie Garber, Luka May Clunn-Cole, Sarah Pensalfini, Clarence Ryan, Tamala Shelton, Hugh Sheridan, Lily Sullivan, Josh Quong Tart, Natasha Wanganeen, Leonie Whyman, Tasia Zalar.
Dark Place is a 2019 Australian horror anthology film. The shorts in the film were directed by Indigenous filmmakers Kodie Bedford, Perun Bonser, Rob Braslin, Liam Phillips, and Bjorn Stewart, all of whom also wrote their own scripts.
All five shorts center upon the Aboriginal people of Australia and the long reaching impact of colonialism. With quote from Wikipedia.
"Scout" (d. Kodie Bedford)
A group of indigenous women have been kidnapped and forcibly sex-trafficked, however it seems like their captors may have darker plans for them. The women must try to not only escape, but also get their revenge against their white captors.
Scout is a middle-aged woman who has been abducted in her kitchen, imprisoned, interacting with the women in the trailer with her, one delicate, one very tough. They are dressed as prostitutes, supervised by the manager (Nicholas Hope), ill treated by two of the white men in charge of them. After a series of humiliations, Scout looks in the mirror, breaks it, takes a large shard and when brought before the manager, stabs him. She also stabs the two men, one of whom tries to excuse himself. The last sequences of Scout and the other woman, freeing others from the locked trailers and climbing a fence to freedom. Quite a powerful story.
"Foe" (d. Liam Phillips)
After a tragic event upsets her life, Eleanor begins to experience strange sleeping habits. She decides to record her sleeping patterns, but begins to notice something even stranger happening. The atmosphere is mysterious, the focus on Eleanor, psychological patterns.
"Vale Light" (d. Rob Braslin)
Forced to move after their last place caught on fire, Shae and her daughter Isabelle find themselves creeped out by their new neighbour Diane. While Diane initially seems friendly, it doesn't take long for her true, awful personality to emerge. She seems a sensible mother, concerned about her daughter. But in Diane, initially looking mature and seductive, is gradually revealed to be something of a crone, mysterious powers, abducting Isabelle. When she tries to rescue her daughter, Diane exercises powers, hypnotising Shae and urging her to cut out her daughter’s heart.
While Shae overcomes Diane, and everything seems to become normal, especially with new residents moving next door, Isabelle goes to the fence, transfixes the teenagers, luring them to her, Diane’s power in her.
"The Shore" (d. Perun Bonser)
Selena finds herself mesmerized by a figure in the water that may or may not be a vampire. A brief mysterious story, a focus on Selena, her husband dying, disfigurement to her teeth and mouth, struggles with the mysterious figure in the water. Filmed in black and white with sepia sequences.
"Killer Native" (d. Bjorn Stewart)
A British couple has traveled to Australia in hopes of finding a place to make their dream home. They do not expect it to be easy, but they did not expect to find themselves hunted. The couple, remembering London, the wife heavily pregnant, have all the presumptions of arrivals from the old world, land available to them, setting up a post, declaring that there is, hope for a prosperous future.
However, they encounter mysterious presences, but also an aboriginal man (very well spoken, more 21st-century like than 19th-century like), he warns them, they are pursued, strange creatures in the bush, refuge in a settlers’ hut, a mangled body in the cupboard, then the aboriginal man coming to save them, warn them, but the mysterious presence pursues, a female figure, the aboriginal man pursued, the pregnant woman and the child ripped out by the invading woman – and the settler then, bereft, shooting himself by the river. A dramatic look at the presumptions of the newcomers to the land, their ignorance of the indigenous people, and the consequences.
