Hounds of Love takes place in 1987, following serial killer couple John and Evelyn White (Stephen Curry and Emma Booth) in Perth, Australia. While searching for their next victim, they happen upon Vicki Maloney (Ashleigh Cummings), a high school girl sneaking out of the house to a party. After being taken and held against her will, Vicki struggles desperately to escape the couple’s terror before being killed.
Upon watching the film, the first thing that struck me was its examination of how women’s relationships with men affect women’s relationships with each other. In order to satisfy her partner, Evelyn plays a key role in luring young women to their painful deaths, despite her not really wanting to do so. It’s a clear case study for how even women can fall into the trap of harming each other on behalf of dangerous displays of masculinity. On the flipside, we have Vicki’s mother Maggie (Susie Porter) and her yearning for independence causing a rift between her and her daughter for the resulting divorce from her father, another sad display of the fallout that a woman’s relationship with a man can have on the women around her. Vicki felt abandoned, too young to understand how restrictive and confining a bad marriage can feel for a woman, particularly a woman of her mother’s generation where avoiding marriage wasn’t such a clear option.
That extremely interesting juxtaposition between Vicki’s mother leaving her father in order to live the independent life she wants, despite its effect on her child, and Evelyn disliking what John has her help him do but staying with him anyway for the hope of gaining custody of her kids and completing a family with him, was fascinating to see. Vicki’s life ends up caught between this common dichotomy within women’s relationships with men; her mother’s need for independence outside of the confines of marriage, shattering the conservative family dynamic she’d seen as the ideal, and that very conservative ideal she’d been so angry at her mother for abandoning, “standing by one’s man” and that union no matter what. What Vicki wished for with her parents actually ends up harming her and putting her very life at stake when applied to another relationship. The irony made this film a very fun and interesting watch. The lesson of a woman yearning for independence that Vicki experienced in her own life through her mother actually ends up aiding her escape. She uses it to exploit the tug and pull within Evelyn, the proverbial dueling hounds of love, in order to win Evelyn to her side and ultimately escape.
The film also has something to say about the type of man John is; always in control and manipulative of the women he shares the screen with but wilting and docile whenever he is confronted by men. I’m iffy on this portrayal of an abusive man, it kind of sends the wrong message that only a weak man would do this thing and “strong” men are less worthy of suspicion. In truth as we all know, it can be all kinds. Sure, some men abuse women to feel power in their interactions with them as opposed to their weakness when faced with an equally strong man, but that stereotype doesn’t always hold. Vicki’s father Trevor (Damian de Montemas) does no better for the film’s portrayal of men, at first more worried about imparting blame and guilt on Maggie for leaving her and causing Vicki to “runaway” than he does about listening to his soon to be ex-wife’s insistence that she would never do so. The moment does further emphasize the film’s theme of women and the troubles with relationships.
The way the film handles its portrayal of violence is a testament to how using implied violence and the depths of human imagination can be just as gruesome and visceral as showing blood and guts gore on screen. The torture that John and Evelyn inflict on their victims is never shown, just implied through images of blood, tools of torture, and sound. Leaving the viewer to use their imagination as to what’s happening can have a greater effect than showing it. The human imagination is limitless and often what we dream up is worse and more brutal than what reality can offer. This appeal to each individual viewer’s mental makeup and senses make the story of the couple’s viciousness and cruelty more jarring and impactful than most bloody scenes could, particularly coming off of an age of horror films like Saw or Hostel that focused on over the top gorefests to impart fear.
The film use of images of canids for symbolism is spread throughout the film. Both Evelyn and Vicki seem to use their pet dogs to comfort them in the face of the strife caused by the relationships in their lives, Evelyn to cope with being with John and Vicki to cope with her parents’ divorce. When John first enters the room after Vicki agrees to come in for a drink, we get a quick shot of two wolf figurines, one look wistfully at the other, surely a metaphor for John and Vicki and their relationship/hidden viciousness and intentions.
The film is superbly acted, with Emma Booth the clear standout. She deftly handles a complicated role that has to shift between vulnerable, nasty, sad, and confused. Booth easily handles the required emotional complexity and creates a character that is both villainous at times and sympathetic, not an easy task. After previously being tapped as potentially “the next big thing from Australia” at the start of the decade, I sincerely hope she gets a chance to shine in more films, specifically Americans ones and not just those in her native Australia. Ashleigh Cummings also shines as Vicki, starting the film as a typical teenager angered and dealing with her parents divorce, to a cunning victim of kidnapping fighting to survive by using her wit. Stephen Curry pulls off the role of John shifting between a shrinking man on the outside and a terrorizing, manipulating sociopath while in his house of horrors. Susie Porter also does the most with her amount of screen time, capably displaying a mother’s love for her child, pain at her disappearance, and determination to find her.
This film is a hell of a debut for director/writer Ben Young, whose first feature film this is. All actors in the film are impeccably directed, the film is full of great shots and paced well, and the story is layered, prescient, and compelling. The audience connects emotionally with everyone we’re supposed to, even Evelyn despite her sometimes despicable behavior and choices.
Hounds of Love is a fantastic film that is equal parts thriller and social commentary. It makes the statements that it wishes to make subtlely while maintaining a plot that engrosses viewers even if they do not pick up on the subtext. Every performance from the actors featured is exceptional and connects with the viewer one way or another. I have no doubt it will be one of the best films released this year and is absolutely a must see.
Image: FilmBuff
