The Loved Ones

What kind of deranged bitch asks a guy to the prom? Apparently, the kind that likes to take her would-be boyfriends prisoner and keep girly scrapbooks of her man murdering escapades. The Loved Ones is an Australian film that features this kind of torture lusting she-bitch (named Lola) from down under. The unfortunate victim of this teen-girl psycho is a young man named Brent who finds it hard to cope after inadvertently killing his father in a head-on car collision with a tree. Of course, car accidents have unfortunate consequences but one never expects near death because they turned down a weird girl down for Prom. As you find out early in The Loved Ones, Brent has a loving girlfriend who has no problem letting him know he’s appreciated by spreading her tender thighs, so there was no need for him to be so desperate as to flirt with freak girl. 

The Loved Ones is certainly a film that borrows elements from earlier horror films, most notably The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The People Under The Stairs. In fact, most of The Loved Ones plays out in a similar way to the family dinner torture sequence near the conclusion of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Only in this film, instead of featuring a family of inbred Texas degenerates having a jolly good ol' thyme playing torture, The Loved Ones presents an odd Father and daughter duo who like to play murderously with teenage boys. Lunatic Lola must have one hell of a sex drive and a lot of pent up libidinal frustration for her to decide kidnapping and torturing the opposite sex is a proper way to achieve sexual release. Lola’s sexual perversion is most likely heavily influenced by her weasel-like Father who seems to have extremely intimate feelings for his aggressive debutante daughter. If there is any message of intrinsic value to The Loved Ones, it is that weak Fathers produce deranged and hostile daughters. 

Daddy's Girl

I must admit that I found crazy Lola to be extremely attractive and find it unfortunate that Brent did not agree to go to the prom with her. Had Brent gone to the prom with Lola and broken open her meat curtain afterward, maybe he wouldn’t have had to endure a nightlong torture session. After all, if Lola needed anything, it was to be submissive at the hands of one of her imagined Gentlemen callers. Even after getting hit by a car, Lola still finds enough gall to crawl with a knife (her phallus of choice) to stab the man that stood her up. Despite being the villain of the film, Lola is certainly the most interesting and complex character featured in The Loved Ones. Of course, being a sensational horror film, we are barely introduced to the character of Lola and what makes her tick. On the other hand, the ambiguity of Lola’s character also gives the film a certain power that may have been lost had the director of the film decided to reveal more about the teenage angel of death. 

Female serial killers are a rare breed and I would like to seem more featuring them like The Loved Ones. After all, the world needs more films featuring the deepest and darkest fantasies of your typical post-female Feminist. The Loved Ones certainly borrows conventions and characteristics of earlier horror films but executes these traits in a new way, resulting in a film that is sadistically entertaining from beginning to end. Maybe there is re-animated hope for the mostly sterile horror genre as recent shockfests like The Loved Ones and Deadgirl have given me some optimism. 

-Ty E