The Loved Ones

Sean Byrne's first feature and one of the harshest Australian horror films of the last twenty years. Brent turns down Lola, the strangest girl in school, when she asks him to the dance. That evening he wakes in a house, at a table decorated with pink satin and glitter. Lola and her father have built their own prom and chosen him as king. The idea is to turn every ritual of the teen prom film into a horror scene: the crown, the dance, the photograph, the meal. The violence is not fast, it is ceremonial. Robin McLeavy's Lola carries the film; the character is neither explained nor made comprehensible. It premiered at the Toronto film festival, opened in Australia in 2010, and did not reach the United States until the summer of 2012. Who it is for: viewers who like hard, short horror with a streak of humour. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot take torture scenes. The film does not shy from showing the tools, and its second half happens almost entirely in one room.