Novice Australian film maker Steven Kastrissios in his first feature has managed to cram a lot of anger into his revenge film THE HORSEMAN, in limited release in Australia. Why so limited? well, it's a sort of BAISE MOI level road film with WOLF CREEK ideology and a lot of people tied to chairs being tortured while they scream. Quentin and Eli (of HOSTEL infamy) no doubt would be very pleased with this spawn of their school of revenge cinema. It is all sad really; not just the heartbreaking back-story but that visual atrocity insistence by our young Steven. I really cannot imagine his Mum and Dad being too happy... maybe some psychiatric sessions might delve into his dark recesses since this is a first film and he is a young man stained with the quest to put visual cruelty, misery, humiliation and vicious beatings so prominently. For me it smacks (no pun intended) of a lack of talent. Really, just where does a revenge flick go? and why one so pulverizing... after all it can only be a shopping list of killing scenes padded with male bashings, pipe clubbings, stabbings... truly, in the end I was laughing at the absurdity of the fights and the cruelty. It lost all meaning. The film is far too long, too violent and relentlessly downward spiral. In a new generation of young film makers Mr Kastrissios has made an extreme film, unbalanced in its immature depiction of the worst depravity as if that is "creative drama". He has a lot to learn and you are warned that he will make more and herald it as clever. It is all sad, even the bloody existence of this attempt at porno cruelty revenge horror. It is as if he made a list of depraved things and connected violent screaming acts between them. The last 30 minutes of the film is so cruelly stupid you will likely laugh out loud especially during the strangulation with the garden hose. I bet the premiere was a doozy with the guests vomiting in the toilets at the after party and Mum and Dad looking to escape. The real test of his film making maturity will come in another film that simply has to be about something that offers value for time spent watching. THE HORSEMAN was occasionally interesting until it went so completely off the rails in the last act. And all from someone so young and bright but preferring (like the victim daughter of the film) to dive immediately into filth and brutality.
Review of The Horseman
