Leads shine and sound design soars

Shudder ●●●●●

With the likes of The Babadook, Lake Mungo, Talk to Me and Relic, Australia has become a rollickingly reliable creator of hefty horror.

You’ll Never Find Me doesn’t quite deliver the seminal quality of the above flicks, but still shocks in small doses.

Brendan Rock stars as the lonely and strange Patrick who gets a knock on his trailer door from The Visitor (Jordan Cowan) in the middle of a violently stormy night.

After helming a series of shorts, this marks Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell’s first feature film, with Bell on scripting duties.

The pair have come up with a tight, tense little affair where the movie’s true villain remains unclear throughout as Patrick and The Visitor engage in a game of verbal cat and mouse.

Mainly set within Patrick’s trailer, the claustrophobic surroundings, along with the wild storm outside, perfectly positions the co-leads in an environment from which there seems no escape.

The best things about You’ll Never Find Me are the performances and its sound design.

Rock is never fully trustworthy but quizzical, sad looks and incredulous accusations keep him from full villainy, while there is an otherworldly quality to Cowan whose predicament builds and builds; this pair make even cooking and eating soup terrifically tense.

The sound design is a character in itself, with the howling wind and relentless rain hammering Patrick’s mobile home, pipes clanging and floorboards creaking.

The pace is too slow too often, however, and the mental duel between Patrick and The Visitor peaks well before the final revelations.

Speaking of which, the climax veers off into odd places that confound and confuse matters and doesn’t deliver the gut punch it aims for.

As minimalist filmmaking, You’ll

Never Find Me can be considered a triumph, but the simple story is stretched out and it struggles to maintain the effectively built early discomfort and intrigue.

●What are some of your favourite films with a very small cast and/or a minimal setting?

Pop me an email at ian.bunting@ reachplc.com and I will pass on your comments – and any movie or TV show recommendations you have – to your fellow readers.

This superb British comedy – available on DVD and 4K Blu-ray – is a real favourite of mine.

I can remember many a time sitting watching it on the TV – and it was one of the first discs I bought when I first got a DVD player.

Alec Guinness, Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers and Danny Green are fantastic as the oddball criminals outdone by Katie Johnson’s octogenarian widow and her pesky birds.

With his sly, creepy looks, Guinness in particular is a riot. The 2004 remake led by Tom Hanks isn’t too bad – but can’t hold a candle to the original.