Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Kestie Morassi, Jane Badler, Louise Siverson, Taysha Furragia, Ellie Stewart, Ellie Tevelis
Intro:
… a suitably creepy affair that tips its cap to the likes of Insidious, the Conjuring franchise and even J-Horror, such as The Ring.
Marking the feature length debut of director David Willing, Surrogate fits into the same vein of horror as Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook and Brandon Christensen’s Still/Born, in which a mother finds herself under duress from supernatural shenanigans.
The mother this time around is Natalie (Kestie Morassi, Wolf Creek), a single mum and nurse who does everything she can to raise her daughter. When coming back from a late night shift, Natalie helps out a distressed woman who collapses after having an argument with thin air. Although unable to save the woman, this turns out to be the least of Natalie’s problems.
Within 24 hours, she experiences horrific stomach cramps and bleeding requiring her to be taken to a hospital. Once there, all evidence points to Natalie having given birth. The fact that Natalie flatly denies this only raises suspicions, and Lauren (Jane Badler, V), a Child Protection Services Officer is put on the case to find out what Natalie has done with her baby.
It should be noted that Badler appears to be relishing playing the human baddy. So much so that if she produced a moustache to twirl, you wouldn’t think twice about it.
While Lauren keeps Natalie under watchful and sceptical eye, things begin to escalate at home. Natalie’s 9-year-old daughter is having her sleep disturbed by something whispering in the dark, leaving her with bruises in the morning.
Willing, along with co-writer Beth King (Nowhere Boys) could easily have gone down the path of distracting the audience enough that they begin to question Natalie’s view of things. Is there really a ghost in the house, or is Natalie in the grips of a murderous postnatal depression? And perhaps to do so would have been just a touch outside the barriers of taste. Instead, all involved are clear in Natalie’s innocence and so the movie becomes about trying to work out what unnerving presence has made itself at home.
The filmmakers never overplay the tension, allowing things to simmer gently instead of relying on jump scares. Perhaps the biggest flourish comes in the form of Malcolm (Matthew Crosby) and his clairvoyant daughter, Ava (Ellie Stewart). Offering to speak to the spirit that’s harassing Natalie, Willing sets up a seance that relies on nothing more than a couple of mirrors and some sterling acting by Stewart. It’s one of the strongest scenes in the film and their absence after the scene is highly noticeable. It wouldn’t be surprising if Willing and King had other ideas for this father/daughter duo in the future.
Surrogate is a suitably creepy affair that tips its cap to the likes of Insidious, the Conjuring franchise and even J-Horror, such as The Ring.
