Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Perfectly adorable

An absolute waste of money

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

"The Loved Ones" follows a teenager reeling from the tragic car accident death of his father. When he rejects a shy female classmate's offering to attend the school dance, he gets a bit more than he bargained for. As it turns out, she's a bit more than simply "shy"; she's psychotic, and her equally-demented father plan a party just for him.I don't know what it is, but from my perspective, Australia has always excelled in horror films, offering some of the most visceral and most unusual genre pictures (e.g. "Picnic at Hanging Rock," "Road Games,"; and more recently, "Wolf Creek," "The Babadook," etc.). "The Loved Ones" falls in line with this trend, but it rather effectively straddles "visceral" and "tongue-in-cheek" with aplomb.The first act registers as a bit uneven, sketching out vague plot lines that are more thematically-relevant than anything else. The cross-cutting between the protagonist and two secondary characters leaves the audience slightly unsure of where the film's emotional center is going to lie, but it shifts gears noticeably around the midway mark, where the proceedings get even more bizarre and more intense. In spite of this, even when the film has reached its peak-potency, there is a slight bittersweetness about it that is not too overbearing in a "ha-ha" way, but still playful no less.Writer-director Sean Byrne was clearly inspired by the likes of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" in crafting the screenplay; the demented familial dynamics present here recall those in Tobe Hooper's 1974 classic as well as its sequel, and there are several visual compositions in "The Loved Ones" which are reminiscent of "Chainsaw" (geographically, Australia does resemble swathes of Texas). Xavier Samuel makes a formidable and likable lead here, and he plays off Robin McLeavy's frenetic energy nicely. I've seen some class the film as "torture porn," which I find to be slightly untrue. No doubt, the film is very graphic, but it's a far cry from the by-the-numbers knockdown that many of those films offer.Overall, "The Loved Ones" is a strong and steady horror film that is as playful as it is utterly demented. It toes the line between grim violence and irreverence quite nicely, and while the first act suffers from some slight pacing issues, the second half more than makes up for it. 7/10.

The girl from Hell on Wheels, with the Indian tattoos on her chin, stars in this Australian flick. Not a bad horror film, considering I've seen a lot and it takes plenty to impress at this point.It could have been more spectacular, but for a low-budget Indie type film from another country, it delivers enough entertainment and irony to keep you happy.More could have been done with the basement dwellers, and I don't think you can pour hot liquid into a tiny hole in the head without scalding the person's face off and the guy holding him.The protagonist should have run into the night instead of up a tree.The dorky kid who dated the cop's goth daughter was pretty funny. This added a light reprieve to the other gory stuff.Overall, not a bad effort, in a world populated by tons of crappy horror films.

Looks can be deceiving. I had this movie at the top of my watchlist for about five years and finally watched it. I had heard it was good but always avoided it for some reason. Now, I've seen it and things will never be the same again! A major balls-to-the-wall Aussie horror joyride, hang on to something, anything, because when it takes off it never stops! The lead villainess, Lola, is someone you don't root for, at all, you keep hoping for her violent demise, she's just that EVIL! Highly recommended, tons of twists and shocks and all that fun stuff, I audibly gasped several times and howled in surprise too. More like this, please!

I don't remember the last time I've felt so intensely while watching a movie. Pain, fear, horror, anguish,disgust, anger, suspense - everything you'd hope for in a horror movie is there. The acting is superb, the characters are all believable. Just wait until you witness the two main villains interacting with each other. It's so f******* creepy, and it succeeds because you can believe in their performances. The two are seriously the creepiest, most frightening, most disturbing and disgusting villains I can recall. The violence - Oh my god. I'm not sensitive to violence at all, but I was squirming throughout this film. They do a really good job with it, and the lead does a great job with displays of pain and suffering. And a really nice touch, is that everything adds up in the end, some minor plot points are tied up, which gives the story a nice bit of closure. There is one slight plot hole with the cop (I won't tell you what it is - you might not even notice), but it barely detracts from the story and certainly doesn't even come close to ruining any of it. Edit: I forgot to mention the soundtrack, which is incredible. Songs perfectly to the scene, whether they be angry or deceptively, sickly pretty. If you can handle an unbelievably brutal movie - then watch this and love it.