Movie Review: Wound (2012)

Directed by David Blyth

Starring Kate O'Rourke Te Kaea Beri and Campbell Cooley

Before sitting down at the keyboard to write this review, I felt it appropriate to watch this movie a second time, which I am glad I did, because after watching it the first time all I could do was turn to my girlfriend and ask her, “What the fuck just happened? What did we just watch?” The second time around I was able to tune out the visual onslaughts and focus my attention on figuring out the story behind the madness.

Buy Wound on DVD

Wound basically explores the dark worlds of mental illness, incest, revenge and death. We follow two main characters, Susan (Kate O'Rourke) who's mental illness has her trapped in a netherworld which is half dream-scape and half reality. Tormented by a past filled with violence and incest and a present filled with bizarre obsessions and compulsions, sexual fetish's, murder and gory retribution. And then we have Tanya (Te Kaea Beri), the daughter she gave up for dead as a baby who has returned to seek a dark revenge of her own.

Filled with disturbing, nightmarish images from start to finish, Wound is everything that mainstream cinema doesnt have the balls to be. It is original and non-conformist at its core. Trying to compare it to other films is nearly impossible, maybe we could say its an X-Rated version of The Serpent and the Rainbow, but with that movie you could at least distinguish between fantasy and reality. Wound doesnt afford you that luxury, it forces you to just hang on for the ride and leave you to your own devices as far as picking out what was real and what wasn't.

The acting by our two female leads was amazing, especially Kate O'Rourke. Her anguish was palpable and you could truly feel her fear throughout the film. The cinematography was top-notch as well, filled with disturbing images, both colorful and dark at the same time. Gore-hounds should not be disappointed with this one, there are buckets of blood, some pretty graphic genital mutilation and a birthing scene that is just plain old fucking gross, amung many other nasty little treats director Blyth has dreamed up for our viewing pleasure.

Doing a plot summary on this one is really pointless, words cant do it justice. It must be experienced, and more then once in my opinion to really get a hold on what is going on beyond the bloody exterior of this film. It is a visceral nightmare that doesnt let you wake up at the end. The confusing and frenetic pacing of the movie realistically conveyed a complete loss of sanity in its characters.

Kudos all around to this film, it was a bad-ass little piece of indie film-making run amok. Horror fans should definitely check this one out.

8 out of 10 Reviewed by KennyB