THE LOVED ONES Alt Cinema

Sean Byrne’s heart-pounding thriller opens with tragedy, and then slowly spirals out of control. Brent (Xavier Samuel) ts a brooding teen who has suffered the loss of his father Otherwise, his world is not much different than any other teenager’s around the world: a cool best friend a cute girlfriend and too many hormones. But after a sweetly unassuming “other girl” (Robin Mcleavy) tries to find o way into Brent’s life, the film rockets into disturbing territory. Aided by an immensely talented cast, Byrne explodes on the international film scene with a wonderfully demented debut of highly unusual shape and style. While most teen cinema heavily relies on romance or comedy, he gives us a distinctly Australian version, teeming with car crashes power drills and blood-soaked mayhem.