In horror, you don’t always need to reinvent the wheel. Especially if you’ve got a good wheel already.
The Furies (see, podcast review) takes a well-worn and inherently exciting idea in the horror genre for a spin: dystopian prey hunting of the two-legged variety, see Hard Target, Battle Royale, The Most Dangerous Game. And it adds a bit of gimmicky fun to ratchet up the interest level.
Two recent high school grads (Kayla and Maddie) have a spat under a Sydney (we’re guessing) bridge about who is or isn’t going to succeed in life. But little to do they know, they’ll have bigger fish than whether they’ll get a thin, or thick university application response.
After storming off, the the duo is kidnapped.
And we’re reintroduced to Kayla from the inside of a coffin. She wrests herself free, only to find herself in a desolate abandoned mining town hellscape in New South Wales. It’s replete with a very eerie strand of trees, which give the remote area (an area, best known for its remoteness, har har – thanks, and RIP Norm MacDonald) a very uniform and utterly surreal look.
Kayla soon stumbles upon another woman in the woods and it turns out, they are UNWILLING PARTICIPANTS IN A DEADLY GAME!
Billed, wholly inaccurately, as Halloween meets The Hunger Games, The Furies benefits from being shot entirely in daylight, which is kinda neat. Not to compare them, but it’s always interesting, stylistically, to see films lensed in daylight. These include classics like Tenebrae (ironically titled, as the word means darkness and yet Argento dazzled us with Roman sunshine) and of course, Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The Furies, like TCM, incorporates some of the more obvious tropes of the hicksploitation genre: Kayla and company coming upon ramshackle accommodations that offer…not exactly the latest modcons, this as they’re hunted by mysterious, animal mask- wearing bumpkin brutes.
That said, The Furies takes a different, um, road from a typical Wrong Turn conceit, by introducing a snuff conspiracy ring to the proceedings and some interesting backstory to the ladies. What’s more, the movie bubbles along at a quick pace, bursting out of the gates with a pretty fun first act.
*** (out of 5)
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