Fantastic Film Fest 2023 Review - Beaten to Death
Images courtesy of Fantastic Film Festival Australia.
Beaten to Death is a brutal, bleak survival horror film from Australian director Sam Curtain. The film follows Jack (Thomas Roach), a desperate man who, after he and his soon-to-be ex-wife piss off the wrong dealers, is hunted across the Tasmanian outback. Pursued by ruthless thugs, tormented by his own guilt, and haunted by visions of his dead wife that look like they were pulled straight from a Google search of "stock footage happy couple", Jack must endure a relentless ordeal of physical and psychological torture.
Bar the handful of times the budget gets in the way (it's little wonder why the film was made without any government funding given its high impact content), Beaten to Death isn't coy about showing the graphic violence and gore that Jack suffers, as well as inflicts - there's even a point-of-view eyeball gouging that felt quite creatively framed. While it's not always consistent, the cinematography is surprisingly gorgeous, and the harsh beauty of the setting is captured breathtakingly (even a simple shot of a kettle being turned on seems meticulously colour-graded). The film makes good use of natural lighting and muted colours to highlight the dichotomy between the beauty of the ashy, grey wilderness and the ugliness of human nature.
Borrowing heavily from other survival horror films, such as Martyrs, Wolf Creek, and a personal underrated fave of mine, Eden Lake, Beaten to Death offers little in the way of twists or surprises, instead following a well-worn but trustworthy, beaten path into the bush. This unfortunately also means more stereotypical characters than those found in the aforementioned films; sadistic villains who monologue menacingly, the bumbling protagonist who's unrealistically capable when it comes to combat and survival, the helpless love interest who's already dead when the film begins. At two hours, it runs a tad long for such a simple story, fumbling the vibe of its ultra-grim journey as it zips back and forth confusingly between flashbacks, flash-forwards and the main storyline at hand.
All in all, Beaten to Death is an uncompromising and particularly nasty slice of Ozploitation that mostly delivers on the bluntness of its title, with a few neat cinematic tricks up its sleeve. It may not be as original or profound as it aspires to be in its more serious moments, but it's effective and memorable, exploring themes of morality, redemption, and the limits of human endurance.
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Beaten to Death is screening at the 2023 Fantastic Film Festival Australia, running 14th to 30th April. Check out the festival website for tickets and more info here.