Maurice Stubbs: Ray Barrett
Ida Stubbs: Brenda Blethyn
Ronnie: Miranda Otto
Jacob: Richard Roxburgh
Director: James Bogle
Screenplay: Peter Rasmussen & James Bogle
Based on the book "In the Winter Dark" by Tim Winton
Cinematographer: Martin McGrath
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Take 4, oddly assorted, lonely people with limited social skills and put them in an isolated valley surrounded by mist shrouded mountains. Add the menace of an unnamed killer preying on the farm animals and you've got the recipe for a moody, psychological thriller - "In the Winter Dark".
Maurice Stubbs (Ray Barrett) and his wife Ida (Brenda Blethyn) are a lonely middle aged farming couple. Their lives are inextricable entwined but they never talk about the things that really matter. Their deepest emotions, especially those surrounding the death of their infant son, remain unspoken, revealing themselves only in their dreams.
Ronnie (Miranda Otto) is an edgy and rather mysterious young city woman who escaped to the country with her boyfriend. He deserts her after a fight and she's left alone and pregnant. A bad drug trip brings her in touch with Jacob (Richard Roxburgh), a loner who worked as a lawn mowing man until deafness forced him to retire to the bush.
And the bush itself is a character. The surrounding countryside is created as a threatening presence. Eerie music adds to the sense of apprehension and uncertainty. Sound is used well throughout, to highlight the tension as lives unravel in the build up to the disturbing climax. In the end we are left to ponder who or what was the killer, was the threat external or internal?
The film is based on a novel by Tim Winton, one of his darkest; and director James Bogle deliberately sets about creating love, fear and the country as the demons.
The performances are great, especially that of veteran actor Ray Barrett, and the country is revealed to wonderful effect through the cinematography of Martin McGrath. Maybe not since the 1970 film "Wake in Fright", which was directed by Canadian Ted Kotcheff, has an Australian film created such an eerie sense of tension and horror.
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