If
Vicki Maloney had paid more mind to her mother, she would not be in this spot.
Unfortunately, she snuck out when she was grounded and got into a car with
strange people. We can only hope she was wearing clean underwear, because there
is a very good chance she could end up dead in Ben Young’s Hounds of Love (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.
Maloney
and her mother Maggie would be arguing like cats and dogs anyway, because that
is what mothers and teen daughters do. However, her parents’ separation only
makes matters worse, especially since her more financially secure father Trevor
is so good at playing the abandonment card. Tragically, Maloney brief lapse of
judgement might be fatal. It is clear John and Evelyn White have abducted, terrorized,
and murdered a number of girls before her. Yet, even amid the horrors she
endures, Maloney picks up on tensions between her tormentors. She has darn good
reason to believe the manipulative John has been playing his needy wife and she
can tell the more passive captor is starting to suspect it too.
Meanwhile,
the Perth coppers are so unhelpful, they might as well be considered
accomplices. However, the alarmed Maggie is in her fiercest mothering mode and
will not be intimidated into waiting at home for Vicki to call. Old Trevor
largely agrees with her, but he lacks her forcefulness. Basically, they are on
their own, with the clock ticking.
It
seems like abduction-captivity thrillers just keep getting increasingly more sadistic
and disturbing. To be frank, Hounds continues
the trend, but it also has redemptive substance to go with the unsettling
cruelty. It sounds like a shameless pull-quote, but the third act climax really
is so tense you can hardly breathe.
As
John White, Stephen Curry creates a chilling portrait of clammy, calculating
evil. In the potential victim role, Ashleigh Cummings gives a bravely exposed
and vulnerable performance, but the real heart and soul of the film comes from
Susie Porter’s defiantly haunting turn as Mother Maggie. In contrast, the
arrested emotional development of Emma Booth’s Evelyn White does not always
ring true, but her pathological codependency is generally credible enough to
cover for it.