by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: $12.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Rose Riley, George Mason, Hayley McElhinney, Kade Power, Chloe Brink, James Rock
Intro:
… beautifully shot, fantastically acted and dripping with atmosphere and tension.
Allegorical horror films, that is genre movies that have a message or point of view to impart, are so common at the cinema these days that it’s almost a shock when a trashy, simple B-grade film like Primate comes along. Yes, horror is so elevated at the moment that it’s practically a given that the monster in the flick is a metaphor for something bad – depression, isolation, addiction. This isn’t a bad thing, mind you, it often gives genre fare a little more resonance, but the key is: you need to get the horror and the message right, and so often the balance is a bit off. Proclivitas, the latest Aussie genre offering from writer/director Miley Tunnecliffe nails the latter but struggles with the former, in a film full of atmosphere and contradictions.
Proclivitas is the story of former doctor and recovering addict, Clare (Rose Riley), a young woman who has recently lost her mother and is forced to spend time in her old hometown to clean up and sell the family home. Closed off and anxious, Clare is initially reluctant to resume contact with her former flame, Jerry (George Mason), but as time goes on, they begin to rekindle their long dormant romance and fall back into old, bad habits. It also seems that their tryst is awakening something dark and malevolent, a force that harkens back to a time when Clare and Jerry were young and made a terrible, fatal mistake.
First things first, Proclivitas is a stylish, well-shot film. Tunnecliffe’s direction is immediately engaging and the character work that she does with Clare and Jerry – bolstered by excellent performances from Riley and Mason – is top-notch. In fact, the first half an hour or so (which is almost completely free of supernatural shenanigans) is effective and engaging. Problems arise in the second act, however, when the spooky elements begin to appear. It’s not just that they’re not scary, plenty of horror films are light on chills, it’s just that they’re so rote. Leathery clawed hands, black goop and a demon that’s just a bloke in a rubber bondage suit is so American Horror Story season 1 and feels deeply out of place in a film that up until then had been so resonant. Using a monster as a metaphor for addiction is a fine (albeit overused) trope, but you’ve got to make the beast in question as nuanced and visually arresting as the drama scenes.
Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (2014) did this to great effect, utilising a creepy character from a children’s book as a symbol of grief. Natalie Erika James did fine work with 2020’s Relic, using mould to visualise the fear of encroaching death and entropy. Proclivitas, unfortunately, delivers its metaphors with a hammy fist and – other than one scene involving Clare being dragged into a couch – never manages to attain the levels of visual distinctiveness required to make this sort of material work.
Proclivitas is beautifully shot, fantastically acted (props also to Hayley McElhinney who makes a huge impact with a relatively small role) and dripping with atmosphere and tension. Unfortunately, when it comes to delivering on the horror aspects it falters, offering anemic thrills that we’ve seen done better many times before. Still, there’s an undeniable level of craft here and Tunnecliffe is an Aussie director to watch even if this offering didn’t quite pan out.
