Next of Kin (1982)

Directed by Tony Williams [Other horror films: N/A]

This Australian film is one that I’ve been vaguely aware about for many years now. I’ve heard that it’s a pretty solid movie, and many of the ratings I see online tend to back that up. I went in hoping for a good time, and I do generally think that I got one.

I was impressed by how nice the movie looked. This isn’t some gritty, outback movie – this had some production value behind it, and plenty of thought put into some camera shots and scenes. There were some visually striking potions here, and I can certainly understand how this one can get the label of ‘cult classic.’

The story’s pretty solid too, made all the better by the fact that it’s not quite clear where it’s going. A young woman (Jacki Kerin) inherits a retirement home following the death of her mother, and creepy things begin to happen. Whether these creepy things in question are of supernatural origin or not is part of the question, and the movie has a quality atmosphere and almost gothic feel to it at times to back the story up.

The finale is somewhat striking too – once we do figure out where this one’s going, we’re treated to a decently suspenseful finale, followed by a couple moments of quiet (in a very unexpected, yet subtly sorrowful, sequence), and then the action ramps up again. It was structured in a unique way, and part of me wondered if the film would just fade to black during that quiet sequence, before things unexpectedly picked up again.

Jacki Kerin hasn’t really been in much, which I find a shame, as I thought she did a great job here, even reminding me toward the end of Marilyn Burns in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. A young John Jarratt (Wolf Creek, Dark Age, Rogue) was nice to see also. Charles McCallum played a nice, older man, Alex Scott (The Asphyx) a potentially shifty doctor, and Gerda Nicolson did well as an older woman hiding a secret or two.

Some of the cinematography here really is stunning – during a dream sequence, it appears that a man is swimming outside a young woman’s window – and it reminded me a bit of what we later see in Razorback. Nothing here is that otherworldly, but it’s the same idea, and I was surprised by how nice, and how fresh, this movie ended up looking.

I don’t think the film is without flaws (though it’s fair to say that no big flaws seem to rear their heads), but I do think it’s very much a movie that’s worth seeing. If you want some foreign flavor, Next of Kin may be your type of film.

7.5/10