Dark Place – review

Directors: Perun Bonser & Rob Braslin (segments)

Release date: 2019

Contains spoilers

Dark Place is an anthology from Australia that seeks to showcase the talents of indigenous filmmakers. It is a startling set of films with my favourite being the short entitled Scout, which is a revenge themed piece set in the world of sex slavery.

Which, of course, has nothing to do with the first of two films I want to look at within the running length.

Shae and Isabelle

That is entitled Vale Light, directed by Rob Braslin, which on its own might have been borderline for review as it is more a witchcraft story than vampire but vampirism is certainly implied. It follows Shae (Tasia Zalar) and her daughter Isabelle (Jolie Everett) and, when we meet them, they are sleeping in a car. They go to their new home – as the film develops we discover that there was a fire at the previous home, set by one of Isabelle’s friends. When they arrive, they meet their new neighbour Diane (Sara Pensalfini).

everyone leaves

We realise that something strange is going on with Diane when she approaches Shae outside, with a party going on indoors and Shae wanting her guests to leave. Diane offers to get them to leave and goes in, whispering to them one by one and they walk out, subdued, almost in trances. Isabelle seems to warm to the neighbour, who is well travelled and owns a range of artefacts from around the world (speaking, perhaps, to colonialism).

becoming older

In a meeting Shae notes that her neighbour is looking ill but it is after a nightmare, searching for the missing Isabelle, that she sees Diane looking decrepit. Isabelle has powers also (we have seen her move things by telekinesis) and Dianne (who has stolen a bracelet Shae and Isabelle made) uses magic to try and force mother to cut daughter’s heart out. This is the implied vampiric moment, that Diane will use (devour) the heart to restore herself – it is also a continuation of the colonial theme, as Dianne has said about needing a keepsake from Australia and that could be the heart and the youth it will confer.

Barry injured

This short is followed by Perun Bonser’s The Shore. This is our vampire proper film but it is a wonderfully sparse black and white effort, which is perhaps light on plot but strong on atmosphere. It starts on a lakeshore and the crack of a gunshot sounds as a bullet rips into the waters, followed by another and another. A man, Barry (Bernard Curry) struggles back to his wilderness hut, carrying his rifle in one hand and clutching his neck with the other. He is met by daughter, I assume, Selena (Luka May Glynn-Cole) who helps him in but he dies. She sits waiting, gun in lap, as night falls.

meeting mother

As night moves on she falls asleep and dreams… she dreams of a meal with Barry, where he insists she eats the food she has been playing with. She takes one mouthful but gags and, as she spits up the mouthful there is a tooth in the food. Reaching into her mouth she pulls out another. She walks into the room where Barry’s body is and sees someone chewing on the corpse – she sees herself, face smeared in blood. Running to the lake a figure emerges, her mother (Bee Cruse) and she has fangs…

filing fangs

As I say, a fairly simple story but I’ll leave it there. This was a solid anthology and, though wonderfully atmospheric, The Shore was probably narratively the weakest of the bunch – but still worthy. The film is definitely worth catching (and is on the Australia ABC channel broken down into 5 episodes), all the shorts offering something to the viewer – some gritty and others shlocky and comedic, but all of a decent quality. Between them the two vampire/vampiric shorts are worth 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.