who put the edge in edgerton?
Joel Edgerton in Acolytes
Joel shows us his dark side in a new Aussie horror flick
Donning a coiffed moustache and aviator sunglasses, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the character Joel Edgerton plays in his new film is a porn star from the seventies. But Ian Wright is anything but. A (seemingly) dedicated husband and father by day, Ian has a nasty hobby by night - he's a serial killer or, as Edgerton himself puts it, "just a bad, bad man".
The film is Acolytes and it's the fourth feature film from director Jon Hewitt, whose previous works include the low-budget exploitation gore fest Bloodlust. Acolytes, he says, is a "teen chiller"; it's a slow-burn thriller that "explodes in horror".
Three teenagers, James (Joshua Payne), Mark (Sebastian Gregory) and Chasely (Hanna Mangan Lawrence) blackmail Edgerton's character in the hope that he'll help rid them of a bully (played by Michael Dorman from Suburban Mayhem) who's been terrorising them for years and has just been released from a stint in prison. Like any plan hatched by naïve youngsters involving serial killers, things are bound to go wrong, and do. Big time.
To add to the film's verisimilitude (and to ensure his target teenage audience didn't feel patronised), Hewitt hand-picked actors to play his three leads who were actually teens and not 30-year-olds pretending to be adolescents (Jason Priestley anyone?) This of course opened up all sorts of conundrums regarding censorship and classifications. But Hewitt believes that rather than restricting him, this made him think creatively about the way he approached the film's more gruesome scenes, whilst keeping within the boundaries of its MA15+ rating.
Acolytes comes to Australian Perspectives in a special extended season after wowing audiences and critics at last year's Toronto and Melbourne International Film Festivals. Director Jon Hewitt will join us for a Q&A session after the 4pm screening on Sat 2 May. For session details and bookings click here
Published Thursday, 30 April 2009
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