Movie Review: Killing Ground (2016)

The movie stars Ian Meadows, Harriet Dyer, Aaron Pedersen, Aaron Glenane and Stephen Hunter.

After a somewhat stressful afternoon, I was in the mood to unwind with a horror film. My wife suggested the movie Wrong Turn but, mostly because I wasn't interested in digging out our DVD copy, I did a search for similar movies on Netflix and we ultimately picked out this film.

Mostly because the movie looked similar to other films we've watched, my expectations for it were somewhat tempered and, for a while, I was curious if this would turn out to be a really bad soft core porn film (like one we tried to watch earlier this week). However, as it turns out, it actually was considerably better than I was expecting.

The movie takes a little while to get going, mostly because there are a couple story lines (one in the present time and one from three days earlier) that need to be established. At first, I wasn't really sure what to think about this, especially since there were times when it was a little difficult to figure out what was happening when (mostly because of the Australian accents). But, after some reflection, I'm glad the movie did take the time to do things that way because it helped give some depth to the characters and made it easier to care about them.

Once the action does start, I have to admit, I was on the edge of my seat. I especially loved how Samantha (Dyer) made every effort to fight back whenever she could. As I've said before, I hate weak victims in movies and she was somewhat refreshing as a result.

I also loved how the movie created a pretty nice contrast between her and her fiance, Ian (Meadows), who was quick to runaway and hide and made zero effort to save anyone, including the child (Liam and Riley Parkes). In fact, I kind of liked the bad guys more than I liked him by the end of the film.

Unfortunately, this movie does have a pretty large flaw, at least in my opinion. I don't want to give away too much of the movie so I won't go into a great deal of detail. But, the film just ends with a lot of questions unanswered.

In fact, when I watched this last night, I thought something was wrong with Netflix. It wasn't until the credits popped up that I realized the movie just cut out at a strange, somewhat awkward point. As my wife described it, it was as though the filmmakers ran out of money and just ended the movie when the last dollar was spent. I really wish they would have done a better job at the end, especially since there was pretty much no closure.

The ending is horrible. However, I liked the rest of the movie enough to still recommend it if you're looking for something to watch.

My Grade: B