Directors: Danny and Michael Philippou

Stars: Sally Hawkins, Billy Barratt, Sora Wong, Jonah Wren Phillips, Sally-Anne Upton

Australian writer-director siblings Danny and Michael Philippou’s follow-up to their scary addiction allegory debut 'Talk to Me’ is a genuinely unnerving, at times horrifying picture, with indelible images and a supremely creepy performance from Sally Hawkins. It begins with seventeen-year-old Danny (Barrett) and his little step-sister Piper (Wong) finding their father lying on the floor in the shower severely bloodied with the water still running. He dies and the pair are told by sympathetic social worker Wendy (Upton) that they are to be fostered until Danny can apply to be his sister’s legal guardian on his eighteenth birthday. At first there is talk of separating the siblings with mutterings of a troubled incident in Danny’s past, but he pleads not be parted with his sister. They are sent to stay with Laura (Hawkins) a worryingly odd social worker who makes no secret of the fact that she favours Piper over Danny, chiefly because the poorly-sighted Piper reminds Laura of her own blind, recently deceased, daughter. Laura has another foster child in her care, Oliver (Philips) a severely dysfunctional and seemingly mute ten-year-old with shaved hair and an unsettling wide-eye expression. As their stay goes on Laura attempts to undermine Danny as a potential guardian for his sister while making her own plans for Piper. The brothers broadly eschew easy jump scares in favour of an oppressive sense of dread, augmented by Emma Bortigon’s immersive soundscape. There is one moment of body horror midway though involving a knife that will test the strongest of stomachs. Ultimately, the film abandons the thematically rich musings on grieving and trauma as the story moves to its horrific climax. The two young leads are great though, as is Hawkins, partly riffing on and subverting her ‘Paddington’ cooky foster mum persona, with overly ingratiating Aussie vibes thrown in for bad measure.

David Willoughby

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