August 31, 2018
Written by: Sean Byrne
Starring: Xavier Samuel, Robin McLeavy, Victoria Thaine
Budget: $4,000,000
Quote: "I'm gonna go to your house now and stab your mummy just like you did my Daddy. Then I'm gonna go find Holly and stab her in the heart just like you did to me."
Trivia: Under the instructions of director Sean Byrne, Robin McLeavy prepared for the role of Lola by researching the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, as well as watching Misery (1990), Natural Born Killers (1994) and the works of Quentin Tarantino.
The successes of the Saw movies and Hostel has given a rebirth to a genre of film making that has largely been ignored since the 1970s grind house exploitation films, the torture film. It's understandable why the genre has been largely ignored. The movies are so unpleasant to watch. And for the most part, the pejorative "torture porn" is an apt title since most of these movies are nothing more than excessive gore without story structure. The Loved Ones is certainly a torture film, but what makes it such a great film is that it has a rich story, well developed characters, and interesting twists. Plus it has one of the greatest villains in horror movie history: Lola "princess." While the torture is really unpleasant to watch, the film also has some great comedic moments that help to lighten up the film and an assortment of interesting characters whose lives all intersect around the madness of Lola.
