Hounds of Love (film)

Hounds of Love is a 2016 Australian crime thriller film written and directed by Ben Young in his feature directorial debut. The film follows a married couple who kidnap and terrorise a young woman in the suburbs of Perth. It was selected to compete the Venice Days section at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival on 1 September 2016, where Ashleigh Cummings won the Fedeora Award for Best Actress.

Plot
Vicki Maloney, an intelligent and charismatic teenager inwardly struggling with her parents’ recent separation, spends the weekend at her mother's house in outer suburbia. After a heated argument between them, Vicki defiantly sneaks out to attend a party and is lured into the car of a seemingly trustworthy couple, John and Evelyn White.

Vicki soon finds herself held captive at John and Evelyn's house where she is forced into a dark world of violence and domination. With no way to escape and her murder imminent, Vicki realises she must find a way to drive a wedge between them if she is to survive. Vicki tries exploiting Evelyn's desire to see her absent children, unfortunately John's emotional hold over Evelyn is too strong and her efforts to turn them against each other only fuels Evelyn's will to see her die. Broken and tormented, Vicki accepts her fate may soon lie at the bottom of a shallow bush grave.

Vicki's desperate mother Maggie will stop at nothing to find her missing child and enlists the help of her estranged husband Trevor and Vicki's boyfriend Jason. When Maggie's search eventually leads her to John and Evelyn's street, she calls out for her daughter in vain. Hearing her, Vicki finds the strength for one last attempt at survival by forcing Evelyn to realise if she ever wants to see her children again, she must break free from John's evil spell. When John attempts to strangle Vicki to death, he is stabbed to death by Evelyn. Vicki escapes from the house and defiantly walks past the knife-wielding Evelyn, who allows Vicki to pass. Driving away, Maggie sees the bloodied Vicki in her rear-view mirror. She stops the car and is reunited with her daughter.

Cast

 * Emma Booth as Evelyn White
 * Ashleigh Cummings as Vicki Maloney
 * Stephen Curry as John White
 * Susie Porter as Maggie Maloney
 * Damian De Montemas as Trevor Maloney
 * Harrison Gilbertson as Jason Farris
 * Fletcher Humphrys as Gary

Reception
The film was given a limited theatrical release in June 2017 and was met with critical praise. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 88%, based on 98 reviews, and an average rating of 7.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Smartly constructed and powerfully acted, Hounds of Love satisfies as a psychological thriller with a few nasty surprises — and marks writer-director Ben Young as a promising talent." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews".

Critics found common ground in their enthusiasm about the psychological component to the horror depicted, as well as various technical aspects, particularly the cinematography and direction.

The film was nominated for 9 AACTA awards in 2017 winning Emma Booth a Best Actress in a Feature Film Award.