Butler's Cinema Scene

Ashleigh Cummings

“HOUNDS OF LOVE”  My rating:  

108 minutes | No MPAA rating

The temptation is to dismiss “H0unds of Love” as seedy exploitation, a bit of torture porn.

Except that Ben Young’s debut feature won’t allow us that easy way out. It is too well made — and especially too well acted — for us to simply turn our backs on its unpleasantness.

Loosely inspired by David and Catherine Birnie, a real life couple in Perth, Australia, who in the ’80s abducted and killed four young women, this creepy nail biter pits a surprisingly resilient teenage girl against a pair of serial killers.

John and Evelyn White (a spectacularly good Stephen Curry and Emma Booth) live in a nondescript suburb of Perth.  They’re not particularly popular with their neighbors, who would be horrified to learn what goes on in their utterly ordinary-seeming house.

The two snatch and imprison young women.  These victims are terrorized and abused and finally killed by John, who buries the bodies in a nearby forest.

Their latest prize, Vickie (Ashleigh Cummings), is a high schooler embittered over the recent divorce of her parents and acting out by sneaking away at night to party with her friends.  She’s walking to one of these shindigs late at night when the Whites pull up in their car and offer her a lift and a joint.

As writer and director Young doesn’t dwell on the brutality inflicted on Vickie.  The really awful stuff happens behind closed doors, out of sight (if not out of hearing).

What makes “Hounds…” so compelling is the psychological lay of the land.

Emma Booth, Stephen Curry

John and Evelyn share a creepy but comprehensiblee love.  She’s an emotional mess, having lost her two children in legal proceedings. John has promised to help her win them back. Just as important, he showers her with sexual attention, the only time she truly feels alive.

In return, she serves as his Girl Friday, reassuring and reeling in potential victims, caring for their captives, and not asking questions when the girls disappear.

The loathsome John can go from seductive to bullying in the blink of an eye. He feels powerful when a young woman — or Eveyln — is under his control.  But in a scene set away from the house we see him confronted by a loan shark to whom he owns money, and under those circumstances he’s just another panicked  nobody scared of losing a kneecap.

The couple have one rule that mustn’t be violated:  John may torture all he likes, but he’d best channel his sex drive exclusively to Evelyn.  If he violates that, all bets are off.

Vickie, meanwhile, works through her terror to attempt an escape.  And when her captors order her to write a note to her mother explaining that she’s run away to the big city, Vickie employs code to leave a hidden message about her whereabouts. Beneath the spoiled, moody teen hides a resilient young woman.

As you’d imagine, parts of “Hounds of Love” are almost too painful to watch.  But one never gets the feeling that writer/director Young is dishing cruelty for the sake of cheap thrills.

If he can pull this off first time out of the gate, who knows what he might deliver?

| Robert W. Butler