Next of Kin (1982)

Tony Williams’ under-rated Australian/New Zealand horror film has suffered from poor marketing in the past, which sold it initially as a slasher film (which it most certainly isn’t) and subsequently as a ghost story (which again it isn’t). What it is, is a slow-burning, visually inventive updating of old dark house tropes with atmosphere to spare.

Following the death of her mother, Linda (Jackie Kerin) returns to her small rural home to claim her inheritance, an old retirement home named Montclare. Almost immediately, the elderly residents start to die in mysterious circumstances and Linda comes to suspect that home’s doctor, Barton (Alex Scott) and matron Connie (Gerda Nicolson) are the culprits. Helped by her boyfriend Barney (John Jarratt), Linda tries to expose Barton and Connie only to shift her suspicions to new resident Mrs Ryan (Bernadette Gibson) and her nephew who have a terrible secret that relates to the dark past of Linda’s family, secrets that are slowly revealed through a diary kept by Linda’s mother.

The screenplay, co-written by Williams and Michael Heath (writer of the same year’s The Scarecrow and the later Death Warmed Up (1984) and My Grandpa Is a Vampire (1992)), offers very little that’s particularly original but Williams brings bags of atmosphere and visual flair to the sometimes hackneyed proceedings. Williams and his cinematographer Gary Hansen (here at the end of a career that also included Image of Death (1978) and Harlequin (1980)) use slow motion and a whole range of unexpected camera angles to keep us off guard – the script may not be terribly original but Williams constantly wrong foots us visually, giving the film a distinctive look and feel. His camera is never quite in the place we expect it to be, never moves the way other directors might move it, using it to heighten Linda’s growing sense of paranoia and unease with inventive camera trickery. Quentin Tarantino often spouts a lot of nonsense when it comes to his favourite films but in this case he was spot on when he described Next of Kin (apparently his favourite Australian horror film) as having a “very unique tone, and the closest equivalent to this tone is The Shining.”

Even more than Kubrick’s masterpiece, which is indeed a very clear influence on the film, Williams evokes the look and feel of European horror films, his camerawork, lighting and atmosphere recalling the work of Dario Argento and Mario Bava more than the American films that usually informed Ozploitation films of the time. Eerie flashbacks to a childhood trauma featuring a young Linda clutching a ball seem to have been designed specifically to evoke memories of similar scenes in Federico Fellini’s Toby Dammit segment from Histoires extraordinaires/Spirits of the Dead (1968).

Adding to the off-kilter Euro-inflected feel is the extraordinary score by Tangerine Dream co-founder and German electronic music pioneer Klaus Schulze. His characteristic soundscapes of electronic drones and skittering synthesizers is culled from his extensive back catalogue, his temp tracks having impressed Williams more than the original cues he subsequently recorded. A highly recommended soundtrack album has been released on the Roundtable label and serves as an admirable primer to Schulze’s work.

Performances range from the merely functional to the rather good. Kerin, mainly a television actor, is excellent as the beleaguered heroine and one can’t help why her sporadic career never afforded her more big screen opportunities. She has subsequently become a writer and collector of traditional Australian folk stories, still performing but now as a storyteller rather than an actor. Her on-screen boyfriend is played by Ozploitation legend John Jarratt (Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), Dark Age (1987)), here in more more relaxed and jovial mode than one might expect if you only know him from his outstanding performances as the psychotic Mick Taylor in Greg McLean’s Wolf Creek (2005), its sequel and TV spin-off. Horror fans will likely recognise Australian actor Alex Scott from his appearances in British horror films like The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), Twins of Evil (1971) and The Asphyx (1972) while Gerda Nicolson would have been a familiar face to Australian television viewers and appeared in some of the key titles in Australia’s film revival of the 1970s and early 1980s, The Devil’s Playground (1976), The Getting of Wisdom (1977) and Gallipoli (1981).

Next of Kin was released to Australian cinemas in 1982 but the sudden death of one of its key financiers in the closing stages of production, throwing everyone into a tails pin and negatively affecting plans for its distribution. The film subsequently disappeared into semi-obscurity. It turned up on British video thanks to the Atlantis label in August 1983 but for decades it vanished from sight until finally re-emerging on disc many years later. Its championing by Tarantino in Mark Hartley’s essential documentary Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2008) has led to an overdue, if small-scale, critical reappraisal and subsequent blu-ray releases have afforded fans the chance to discover or reacquaint themselves with one of the great Australian horror films of the 1980s.