Killing Ground

A family idyll with a teenage daughter and a little baby vs. Aussie redneck brutes. Killing Ground is a cruel drama that starts out with two timelines which escalate side by side into an intense tragedy and then an unpredictable struggle for survival. Sophisticated editing, with audiovisual minimalism. The cold, detached manner of storytelling makes it all the more chilling. We are spared exploitation scenes, but another scene will make us hold our collective breath as nothing else has done for a long time. (21/10/2018)

Solid forest survival hixploitation that, instead of brutality, relies on the work with the characters. After a relatively lengthy introduction, you really get to know the heroes (and to a lesser extent, the villains), whose behaviour, especially in the end, nicely deviates from the common horror clichés, which puts Killing Ground a a rung higher than your average B-movie production. On the other hand, it is nothing to write home about. 7/10 (25/07/2017)

A very decent survival film by Australian filmmakers. At first, I was apprehensive, fearing it would be an Australian variation on American wannabe horror films about rednecks, but I was surprised several times over. The characters were unexpectedly fleshed out, the film wasn't built around graphic violence, the two timelines were handled very well, and I was really pleased with the ending. I just wonder if Sam had her "swiss army knife" with her in the last scene. I hope she did... (30/08/2017)

Killing Ground could have easily been a little more gritty, but I still think that what we were presented with was quite a lot. The villains are exactly as nasty as you want them to be, and the fate of the individual characters is not pretty, but that was to be expected. Like I said, there's nothing particularly original about the film, but in this case it doesn't matter because you get what you want and it's good. (18/04/2018)