Sort of an Australian Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the teenage crowd, but with a surprising amount of emotional investment.
Not your typical slash fest, The Loved Ones is certainly a bit bat shit crazy, but it does an excellent job at treating the victims as more than fodder. These aren't just characters that can be killed off with no repercussions to the people around them.
The rather innocuous setup occurs when Brent, still trying to cope with his fathers death, turns down Lolas invitation to the school dance. Lola is not at all stable, and it turns out her dad is even less so. From there it could have easily devolved into a more generic gore fest, and while there is a ton of stomach turning gore, the movie isn't content to leave it at that. There is a side story that takes a while to understand the exact point of, but a subtle reveal helps tie it to the overall narrative nicely.
An ambitious film that delivers blood and guts in spades, but succeeds in being about so much more thanks in no small part to the subtly strong performances of the secondary characters.
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