Following its US premiere at Sundance, tense Australian horror-thriller Killing Ground has been picked up for North American distribution by those good folk at IFC Midnight.
A visceral survival thriller in the vein of Deliverance or Straw Dogs, Killing Ground tells the story of Ian (Ian Meadows) and Samantha (Harriet Dyer), who stumble upon an isolated campsite to find an SUV and a tent, but no sign of the occupants. As night falls and the campers fail to return, Ian and Sam grow increasingly uneasy. The discovery of a distressed child wandering in the woods kicks off a chain of events that sees the couple become the prey of vicious criminals Chook (Aaron Glenane) and German (Aaron Pedersen).
Killing Ground is the feature debut of writer/director Damien Power, an award-winning filmmaker with a number of acclaimed genre shorts to his name.
In using the hostile Australian outback to create an atmosphere of unease and isolation, Killing Ground joins a long tradition in genre cinema from Down Under that takes in the likes of Picnic at Hanging Rock and Wake in Fright to Mad Max and Wolf Creek.
Words: Kevan Farrow (@KevanX)
