What Do The Critics Say?

"Sean Byrne's The Loved Ones is a charmer for horror fans, a charmingly revolting mash-up of "Hostel" and "The People Under the Stairs" with none of the former's glitzy nihilism and enough of the latter's goofy implausibility to create a harrowing, hilarious amalgam that'll entertain the hell out of you without making you feel bad about yourself as a person and your choice of entertainment. Truly enjoyable, truly independent, truly scary." Steve "Uncle Creepy" Barton DREAD CENTRAL "Establishes itself as a fast-paced, downright fun horror-movie ride that's ideally suited to its Midnight Madness slot. A fast-paced, downright fun horror-movie ride." David Nusair REEL FILM REVIEWS "Growing pains have never been this excruciating. An instant horror classic. You’ll be shocked but not sickened. The camera doesn’t wallow in the degradation. Pitch-black horror comedy." David Michael Brown EMPIRE MAGAZINE AUST "If John Waters and John Hughes ever conceived the idea for a modern day "Misery", we'd essentially get this Australian horror gem. Is most definitely a horror gem waiting to be explored with top notch performances, an utterly demented story, and compelling direction." Felix Vasquez Jnr CINEMCRAZED "A squeamishly self-aware bloodbath in which Lola, superbly portrayed by Robin McLeavy with hellish zeal, reveals her ambition to be the next Hannibal Lecter. Distinguishes itself from its torture-porn brethren by placing its retro horror elements within the framework of a compelling teen drama." Anders Wotzke CUT PRINT REVIEW

"Transcends mere torture porn: though there's plenty for the squeamish to squirm over here; in its deftly controlled mix of empathy, grotesquerie and sardonic humor Tale of a kidnapped high schooler in high extremis is probably too small and specialized for offshore theatrical interest but should win a fanbase through midnight fest slots and DVD release." Dennis Harvey VARIETY "I decided to give it a shot, and boy am I glad I did! "The Loved Ones" has to be one of the best pure horror flicks I've seen in ages. Overall, "The Loved Ones" was a gem, and one of the true finds of this year's Fantasia. Hopefully, some distributor will see the obvious potential in the film to break into the mainstream, as it would make a perfect horror date flick. I dug the heck out of it." Chris Bumbray FANTASIA "Producers Mark Lazarus and Michael Boughen have stuck to their guns (and hammers and knives and kettles) and delivered a visceral and fiercely original blast of great film terror." Simon Foster SBS "A blood-spattered, tongue-in-cheek horror comedy that features plenty of low-rent gore, some extra-cheesy lines and some terrific performances. And the film moves at a cracking pace." Jim Schembri THE AGE "It's a slick, quick, and surprisingly intense little anti-love story called The Loved Ones, and it's easily one of the coolest Aussie offerings of the past several years. It's a dark and confident mash-up of Misery, Saw, and (of course) some of the films I've mentioned already, but it's also just fresh enough to deliver some of its own jolts, gasps, and legitimate shocks." Scott Weinberg FEARNET

The Production Team

Director Written by Producers Cinematography Film Editor Production Design Costume Design

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Sean Byrne Sean Byrne Michael Boughen & Mark Lazarus Simon Chapman Andy Canny Robert Webb Xanthe Heubel

The Inside Story Sean Byrne’s motto while filming his directorial debut, "The Loved Ones" was, "If you don’t care then you don’t scare." By reminding himself this way to imbue the characters with depth, desires and unconscious needs, he’s created a unique horror movie – one where he delivers all the elements of the genre (and more) while at the same time providing the audience with a satisfying emotional story. The script had Producer Mark Lazarus hooked from the first moment he laid eyes on it. "I had this doctor’s appointment for an old people’s thing I had (I am still young and virile, this was just a fluke, an anomaly, a hole in the time space continuum, a freak event that such a thing might strike me: anyway, it wasn’t that serious). I grabbed the latest script sent by my agent buddy Anthony Blair at Cameron’s Management and I started to read it in the waiting room. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough, I couldn’t wait to find out what was going to happen. My turn with the doctor came and I looked up and all the octogenarians were staring at me, looking a little scared. Apparently I had been muttering expletives out loud while I was reading. When I got back to my office, I finished the last few pages, put the script down, picked up the phone and optioned the script." Lazarus describes his delight when Sean Byrne, a hungry filmmaker bred in darkest Tasmania and fed on a diet of horror movies from an early age, agreed to work with him on the picture. "He had written a corker and I wanted to be part of it. Praise to the movie gods, he let me. The script was so good. I was a hundred percent sure I’d get the sucker up in a heartbeat. Horror was hot and I had the best horror script I’d ever read in my hands." Despite his belief in the quality of the script however, it took another four years to finally finance the film. The first people to come on board the project were the film’s Australian distributors, Madman Entertainment. Lazarus got the message that they had agreed to distribute the picture while staying at his parents’ house in Maryland, USA and that was the beginning of the rollercoaster ride. Madman’s attachment allowed Lazarus to apply to the Film Finance Corporation, Australia's national film funding body that also gave the film its conditional approval. Other investors started to come on board after that: The Melbourne International Film Festival’s Premiere Fund, Film Victoria, Darclight Films and finally Omnilab Media came on as co­producers and investors to make the film a reality. Ambience Entertainment's, producer on the project, Michael Boughen tells of reading the script for the first time and explains why the decision was made to become involved in the project "The Loved Ones was by far the best horror script I had read in very long time. Writer and Director Sean Byrnes vision for film was exactly what I saw on the page and I personally felt in sync with his vision for the film." Lazarus describes the pleasure he experienced upon finally being delivered the news that their project had the financial backing to go ahead: "When they tell you that you have the money, there is a microsecond of pure ecstasy. It hits you in your major chakras (even the unmentionable ones) and travels outwards to ends of your hair and it feels really, really, really good. The bliss is quickly replaced, however, by the terrifying realisation of the enormous amount of work you will have to do to complete this enterprise on time, on budget and without shaming yourself: because making a movie is hard and making a good movie is even harder." It does help however if you can pull together an amazing team to work on it. Byrne, Lazarus and Boughen head a mostly young and all talented crew. "The Loved Ones" crew includes Editor Andy Canny ("Anatomy"), Director of Photography Simon Chapman ("Death at the Party") and prosthetic make­up artist Screamfest Festival Trophy winner Justin Dix (2007's "Storm Warning") and his Wicked of Oz crew. As testament to the strength of the script, Lazarus ("Australian Rules") goes on to explain that "despite saying he’d never do another horror movie after "Wolf Creek" and "Rogue", Sean’s script brought Robert Webb on. He loved it. We already had Ann Folland as our line producer and Anousha Zarkesh started casting. She turned over every rock. We got the best cast in the world. Sean’s script and his shorts spoke for themselves: people wanted to work with this guy." When questioned about his choice of actors Byrne enthuses, "I basically picked really, really good actors that understood the craft, had a real heartbeat and who could understand the characters intellectually. If you can get that right as a director then that’s 80 to 90% of your work done right there. Pick the right people and they come up with their own ideas." The teenage world depicted here owes more to the glossy, colourful world of John Hughes movies than it does to the stark and raw naturalism favoured by Larry Clark. The kids in Byrne’s film live in a world of hotted up cars, school proms and mirror balls. Everything is ultra­hip and stylised. "I think kids almost want to see themselves on the screen as if they’re watching a Tarantino film," he explained. Xavier Samuel ("Twilight Sage Eclipse") who plays Brent in the film laughed as he recalls his first reading of the script. "I flicked through looking for my slabs of dialogue, the monologues that I was going to deliver and it was just scream. Next fifteen pages, scream, scream." Despite the lack of traditional dialogue however, he does an impressive job as the predominantly silent protagonist. "The majority of the film I spend tied to a chair having bleach injected into my vocal chords so I can’t talk: it’s been challenging in that sense because the performance is forced to be quite internal." When questioned about his pain threshold for the different ordeals that his character endures, Samuel ("2:37" & "Road Train") clarifies the non­traditional rehearsal techniques required to prepare for the role, which was more or less just "screaming in the living room" to perfect the right pitch for any given moment. "It’s something that you can only explore properly when the camera is turning over and you’re doing it, a lot of it is unexplored terrain in terms of the pain threshold and the emotion." Given the limited dialogue, much of the development of Samuel’s character takes place through the unspoken. "You have to invent your own dialogue in a way: there are lines to learn, they’re just never spoken." Byrne (who has directed TV commercials for Cadburys, Nintendo and Ford) is quick to praise him for his performance in a difficult role. "He did it beautifully, it’s like waking to a vivid nightmare, everything would be so surreal and then it’s trying to adjust to the madness around you." Brent’s interactions with Lola, or Princess as she is affectionately called by her father, are all the more interesting for the lack of dialogue between them. He has to negotiate the situation and exhibit a range of emotional reactions through the exchange of subtle glances and pointed looks between himself and his captors. For her part, Princess delights in the game of cat and mouse that she and demented and deranged Daddy are playing in their dining room. Robin McLeavy (Daniel Lapaine's "48 Shades"), who was cast as Princess, seems to relish the fun that her character has by treating Brent as a toy rather than another human being. "She has so much fun with her character and she walks a really daring kind of tightrope because she gives us all those moments that you want to have in a movie, but it’s also a really honest and damaged and quite sad portrayal of a girl who in some weird way has never grown out of that magic and fantasy stage of childhood that someday her prince will come," Byrne explained. To prepare for her role, McLeavy researched the psychological condition in the back story to her character but was also careful not to get overly influenced by it. In discussing the emotional makeup of her character, she says: "Lola enjoys this evening that she has with Brent, so I wanted to enjoy that as well. I had a really good time once I’d done all that research then abstracted it if you like, so it became more like a dream. The dinner party was like a dream evening rather than a torture session" The use of a female villain is a delightful surprise and serves a key function in broadening the audience for the film. Horror villains are traditionally male (with some wonderful exceptions) but the injection of Lola Stone's female energy and the film’s dramatic and life affirming elements push the film out of the slasher horror category into a small group of memorable and distinctive horror films that transcend the genre’s usual limitations. On the casting of John Brumpton ("Gettin' Square") as Daddy, Byrne explained: "I think he’s incredibly charismatic, you’ve got absolutely no idea what’s going on in his head and maybe that’s why John is a villain, he’s got these crazy eyes and there’s something naturally dangerous about him but he was also brave enough and such a strong actor to be really contained and I think that’s where the horror comes from." Xavier says Brumpton's "just the loveliest guy you could meet, I don’t know why he gets all the bad guy roles all the time. I guess because he’s got a crazy look in his eye. He’s also really kind and maybe its because he appears like a nice guy and he’s all bad underneath. I don’t really know him that well, maybe he is a psycho." Brumpton says his character, "is a serial killer, it doesn't matter who. What he likes to experience is the spirit in the moment that it leaves the body. I was reading a lot about serial killers and I watched quite a few films guided by what films the director wanted me to see beforehand. It’s not easy work and the last two days of the really heavy stuff [during the shoot] I was waking up with nightmares. I never really remember my dreams, but these ones were so horrific it started to disturb me." The film brings to mind horrific real-life cases. When atrocities committed by tormentors such as the now infamous Jeffrey Dahmer and Joesph Fritzl come to light, the most common comments by neighbours are always "but he seemed like such a quiet, harmless man" or "he mostly kept to himself." So what makes these people tick? American serial killer Dahmer picked up many of his victims at gay bars, invited them home and drugged their coffee to knock them out. While they were unconscious he bored holes in their skulls and then injected hydrochloric acid or boiling water into their frontal lobes with a syringe. Fritzl kept his daughter, whom he had been raping since the age of eleven, locked up inside the basement of his house. Over the course of twewnty four years he physically assaulted, sexually abused and raped her while she was held captive from the outside world. He fathered seven children with her, three of whom had never seen the light of day until the story broke. "We’ve taken a bit of dramatic license, it’s a horror film but it actually happened, this is a human horror, it isn’t zombies rising from the grave," Byrne notes. What's It All About?

Seventeen year old student Brent is traumatised by the death of his father in a car accident which he feels responsible for. After swerving to avoid someone standing in the middle of the road their car crashed into a tree killing his dad. Wracked with guilt, he goes on a guilt-driven bender of pot smoking and loud heavy metal music in his attempt to block out the pain. Six months later, he's asked out to the school prom by Lola (Princess as she is called by her Daddy), the quietest girl in school. When he turns her down, the rejection enrages her so, with the help of her Daddy, she kidnaps Brent, intent on giving gives him a prom night he will never forgetas they force him to endure a macabre celebration the two have planned for him. Realising his desire to live now far outweighs his destructive desires Brent draws on his ability to keep taking the physical torment, that hopefully, will set him free.

The Verdict "Unwary cinemagoers should heed this timely warning! "The Loved Ones" is no ordinary horror flick. Australain Director and writer Sean Byrne's first feature film is one cracker of a twisted tale. It's a disturbing frightfest of the highest order. A chameleon that will have you recoilling in horror with the hair on the back of your neck (and everywhere else) standing on end, or inconceivable as some may find it, have you laughing out loud at brutal acts normal people would generally find quite disturbing. "The Loved Ones" boasts an excellent cast, a wicked soundtrack and a more than satisfying end. 'Pretenders' should avoid this at all cost. A ballsy, campy, funfilled feast for horror fans. Audiences will find "The Loved Ones" far better value than latter editions of the "Saw" franchise. Recommended. 4 STARS." Who Is Playing Who?

Xavier Samuel Robin McLeavy John Brumpton Richard Wilson Victoria Thaine Jessica McNamee Andrew S Gilbert Suzi Dougherty Victoria Eagger Anne Scott-Pendlebury Fred Whitlock Leo Taylor Brandon Burns Stephen Walden Igor Savin Eden Porter Tom Mahoney Gully McGrath Stevie-Lou Answerth Liam Duxbury Jedda

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Brent Princess Daddy Jamie Holly Mia Paul Carla Judith Bright Eyes Dan Teacher Takeaway Shop Attendant Timmy Valentine Rhys Agnew Keir Willis Duncan Fletcher Keir Willis 8 Year Old Princess 8 Year Old Duncan Fletcher 8 Year Old Dog

Run Time 84 minutes Rated MA15+ [AUST] Copyright ©2010 - Madman Cinema - All Rights Reserved ©1999-2010 The Movie Pages & impact Internet Services. All Rights Reserved. Protected by Australian and International Copyright. Trademark Laws and Intellectual Property Rights apply.