Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Hounds of Love Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 26, 2018

Due to recent sad events which don’t need to be recounted here, television news has over the past few weeks been filled with many repeated references to Australia and their now famous banning of so-called assault weapons in 1996. Part of the horror of Hounds of Love is that this “based on a true story” tale doesn’t require even so much as a single solitary handgun (let alone anything more powerful) to deliver death and dismay to a series of Australian victims. The film has a palpably unsettling tone from the get go, when a Perth couple named John (Stephen Curry) and Evelyn White (Emma Booth) first stalk and then lure a young girl into their car after the girl finishes a sports practice. Suffice it to say the Whites’ motives are not altruistic, despite their insistence that they only want to help the girl get out of the stifling Australian heat. In a kind of interestingly discursive presentational approach, writer and director Ben Young makes clear what happens next, without really documenting it in any kind of lurid fashion. The Whites, it seems, are serial murderers, and they enjoy toying with their victims like a cat with a mouse before finally dispatching them. Hounds of Love is often undeniably provocative, even as it tends to avoid really graphically violent imagery, but it’s one of those films that will probably evenly divide audiences. Some may find it a penetrating psychological analysis of an obviously troubled couple, while others may feel it’s a questionable attempt to marry Art House aesthetics to what is in essence a story that has elements of torture porn.

Some of the verbiage on the cover of this release compares Hounds of Love to The Silence of the Lambs, but I’d posit a somewhat older cinematic referent, namely William Wyler’s 1965 offering The Collector. While there are certainly manifest differences between that long ago film based upon a John Fowles novel and this contemporary Australian opus, there’s an underlying similarity in that both films explore another kind of cat and mouse game, namely a psychological one, between captor (or in this case captors) and captive. If The Collector revolved around that kidnap victim’s attempt to sway her tormentor (who is in love with her), Hounds of Love tends to hinge more on the victim attempting to drive a wedge between her married captors.

One of the problematic scenes in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (for me, anyway) was the flashback vignette documenting the last interchange between a mother and daughter, before the daughter is abducted and killed. It was a little too on the nose for my personal tastes, and something at least somewhat similar sets up the main drama in Hounds of Love, where teenager Vicki Maloney (Ashleigh Cummings) attempts to wrangle away from some family dysfunction (with both parents) in typically rebellious fashion. Unfortunately she crosses paths with John and Evelyn, and the bulk of the rest of the film documents Vicki’s harrowing experiences chained in the Whites’ home, more or less waiting for her own murder.

There are two almost diametrically opposed elements at play in Hounds of Love, at least from a presentational standpoint. Writer-director is rather cautious with imagery of outright violence, and yet the film can’t escape the oppressive ambience of Vicki being trapped, not to mention the damage her face and body begin to show as she is subjected to various forms of degradation and outright torture. It’s because of this almost weirdly bifurcated approach that I can see this film either intriguing or disgusting various people, depending on their take on things. The film has some arresting interplay of a more psychological type, especially between Vicki and Evelyn, even if the overall direction of the story seems fairly predictable once the relationships are established.

Hounds of Love Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Hounds of Love is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.38:1. While brightness looks a little boosted at times, especially in some of the interior scenes of the White home, overall this is a crisp and well detailed looking presentation, especially when close-ups (which are fairly plentiful) are employed (see screenshot 14). The palette is relatively cool looking, with a mildly desaturated appearance, especially with regard to things like flesh tones. There are no issues with compression anomalies.

Hounds of Love Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Hounds of Love features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that really doesn't have a lot of opportunity to provide significant "wow" factor, but which still offers good placement of fairly consistent (if sometimes subtle) ambient environmental effects. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly on this problem free track.

Hounds of Love Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interviews

  Stephen Curry (HD; 4:02)

  Emma Booth (HD; 4:15)

  Ashleigh Cummings (HD; 2:52)

• Behind the Scenes

  Behind the Scenes Reel (HD; 5:22)

  Emma to Evie Make-Up Transformation (HD; 1:11)

• Short Films (directed by Ben Young)

  Something Fishy (2010) (HD; 13:13)

  Bush Basher (2011) (HD; 15:40)

• John Butler Trio "Only One" Music Video (directed by Ben Young) (HD; 5:31)


• Theatrical Trailer (HD; 1:59)

Hounds of Love Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Hounds of Love is a film that has horror elements, but which plays out more devastatingly on a psychological level. This is not an "easy" watch by any stretch of the imagination, even if director Ben Young rather interestingly tends to shy away from outright depictions of mayhem. The trio of lead performances is viscerally involving, even if the basic thrust of the plot becomes clear quite a while before it's actually revealed. With some substantial caveats for those who either want nonstop gore in their horror outings, or perhaps ironically for those who may not have the tolerance for fairly sustained hints of torture and captivity, Hounds of Love comes Recommended.