All comments by Johnny Moronic

Acolytes

2008, 1080hd

Acolytes is a thriller where three school kids (one played Hanna Mangan-Lawrence) find a body in the local forest and instead of going to the police they decide to find the killer themselves. When they do, he turns out to be a serial killer (Joel Edgerton). But instead of backing away and letting the police handle it, they extort the serial killer to kill a man (Michael Dorman) who assaulted the two boys years earlier and just got out of jail. Big mistake. Not bad movie, it becomes less credible the longer it goes but there's enough going on to make is a passable movie.

Belinda McClory film clip (sample below)

Salvation

2008

Salvation is a later Paul Cox directed movie (his second last), about Barry (Bruce Myles), who visits a prostitute Irina (Natalia Novikova) and it changes his life. He's married to prominent TV evangelist Gloria ( Wendy Hughes), who runs his life so he finds comfort and his faith again through his visits to Irina and after a while they fall for one another. But Irina's pimp starts hassling her then steals her passport and Barry decides to go the extra mile to save Irina. A bit more straightforward than the usual Paul Cox movie, basically turns into a noir thriller in the third act. Has his usual themes of art and love but they are less prominent here. Probably ends up being one of his more accessible movies. Not bad but it's basically a dressed up 'hooker with a heart of gold' movie.

Natalia Novikova film clip (collages below)

Lake Mungo

2008, 1080hd

Lake Mungo is a fictional documentary about the death of Alice Palmer (Talia Zucker), who drowned herself in a local dam. Her family struggle to get on with life and then Alice starts making appearances in photos and videos and they all but mostly her mother begin to believe that she may be still alive. The truth is a bit more complicated than that. A pretty well done movie that uses the documentary format extremely well to create an interesting mystery. There's some genuinely strange moments that work and apart from a few minor missteps, it is a very fine movie.

Tamara Donnellan film clip (sample below)