There’s a demon in the basement of a modest Australian home, but it’s not as scary as a widow’s seven-year black hole of grief. Sadness is life’s real horror. It’s a monster that some of us can’t kill. Losing a husband in a sudden car accident on the day your child is born is a rough one. They say that life goes on, but not for you. Not anymore. Every day spent raising your son alone is a fresh opening of the wound. What helps you through that one? You don’t know. Your friends and family don’t know, either. If they’re real jerks (and there are some real jerks out there), they might even give up on you because not only are you always bumming everyone out, but your son, raised by a depressive, has become a hellion in his jumpy grade school years. It’s enough to drive a woman deep down into her own head to a place where reality gets fuzzy and anything can happen.
This is a horror film, with some good chills as freaky voices and weird things start to happen around the house, but its lingering effect is a blistering sorrow. It’s no gonzo good time. Lead actress Essie Davis is a great mess in this movie. She’s pure misery without a trace of happiness in her eyes, but we’re with her. She doesn’t alienate us. Meanwhile, writer/director Jennifer Kent, making her first feature, is smart here about planting odd moments throughout that get you talking afterward about what was real and what wasn’t.