There are many horror movies on provide on the AFM this yr however Went Up the Hill, the second movie from New Zealand director Samuel Van Grinsven affords a really totally different tackle the style, utilizing a narrative of haunting and possession to probe a lot deeper emotional terrain.
Stranger Issues star Dacre Montgomery and Vicky Krieps (Previous, Phantom Thread) play the titular Jack and Jill, two strangers linked via their troubled relationship to Elizabeth — the mom who deserted Jack and was Jill’s domineering and lover. The pair meet at a wake after Elizabeth’s suicide. Jill asks Jack to remain. That evening, Elizabeth’s ghost possesses Jill to talk to Jack. Later the method is reversed: Elizabeth possesses her son Jack to work together together with her former lover. “It’s a three-hander performed by two folks, with two folks enjoying the identical particular person,” says Montgomery.
We’re not in Exorcist territory right here. Krieps and Montgomery ship spectacularly understated performances with no spooky voices or OTT violence and solely refined cues to point the shift. Krieps, enjoying Jill possessed by Elizabeth, will get slighter colder, extra inflexible, and extra awkward. Montgomery as Elizabeth talking via Jack, is softer, extra light, but additionally sterner.
The method transforms what may have been sensationalist schlock right into a nuanced research of trauma and grief and the emotional maintain the lifeless nonetheless exert on the residing. “I had simply misplaced somebody and after I learn the script, I believed: ‘Wow that is so true,’ stated Krieps, talking on the movie’s world premiere on the Toronto Movie Competition. “Even when it isn’t a poisonous particular person like Elizabeth, we’re possessed by our previous lives, our previous relationships. The lifeless don’t go away. Emotionally, they proceed to hang-out us.”
Montgomery and Krieps wore separate scents for Jack, Jill and Elizabeth, to offer a sensory set off to modify between performances. “It was one thing we each got here up with impartial of each other, which made it really feel like destiny,” says Montgomery. “Utilizing the perfumes made for a special sensory expertise on set, the odor grew to become a triggering second, a bodily cue to set off reminiscences in your physique. It was rather more intense than I anticipated.”
Because the story regularly reveals the poisonous dynamics of Elizabeth’s life — her abandonment of Jack, her abuse (bodily, emotional and sexual) of Jill, Went Up the Hill dives deep down the emotional nicely, and nearer to true horror territory. There’s a deeply uncomfortable, not-quite-incestuous sexual encounter when Elizabeth possesses Jack to pressure herself on her ex-wife. The truth that Jack can also be homosexual makes the scene much more difficult and emotionally complicated.
However Van Grinsven, who first gained important consideration together with his 2019 pupil movie Sequin in a Blue Room, demonstrates exceptional directorial management, dealing with even probably the most garish and outlandish parts of the story with deftly artistry.
The movie’s eeriness emerges not from conventional horror tropes —although there’s a single, highly-effective leap scare within the ultimate reel — however via technical panache, and prime below-the-line credit together with Robert Mackenzie’s ambiguous sound design, Tyson Perkins’ disorienting cinematography, and Sherree Philips’ minimalist manufacturing design. Hanan Townshend’s rating, with its heavy, rhythmic respiration and ethereal tones, cultivates a continuing environment of unease.
The only handiest particular impact is the color-stripped, bleakly atmospheric backdrop of rural New Zealand. The consequence is among the most startlingly authentic ghost tales in years, a scary film much less about supernatural terror and extra concerning the horror of the emotional hauntings all of us carry.
Bankside Movies is promoting Went Up the Hill internationally, co-repping North American gross sales rights with CAA Media Finance.