Next of Kin : Cousins de sang

Une aventure lente, mais néanmoins impressionnante quelque part entre le slasher et le film d’horreur gothique. Celle-ci se déroule dans les murs sinistres d’un sanatorium où remontent à la surface de vieux secrets de famille. Bien sûr, le sujet n’a rien de bien original, mais la force de cette « ozploitation », c’est avant tout les talents du réalisateur Tony Williams et plus particulièrement son don pour construire les ambiances et les éléments visuels (notamment les mémorables séquences au ralenti et oniriques) combinés aux prouesses de Gary Hansen à la caméra et à la musique énergique de Klaus Schulz. Le tout ne manque pas de faire forte impression. Une autre surprise : la performance de Jacki Kerin dans le rôle de l’héroïne principale ; j’ai totalement cru à la rage et à l’impuissancequ’elle exprime à la fin du film et ça faisait longtemps que je n’avais pas assisté à une hystérie aussi authentique (ce qui m’a rappelé la fuite notoire de Marilyn Burns dans Massacre à la tronçonneuse). Un film d’horreur oublié pourtant d’une qualité étonnante. À voir ! (06/01/2019)

Very well made Australian horror movie. In several scenes the atmosphere is so good that I felt hints of fear. Unfortunately, it drags quite a lot (not only) from the beginning. (23/06/2011)

Tony Williams manages to extract more than you would expect from an unknown director from a bland gothic haunted house tale full of hackneyed clichés. Just the fact that the film is set in the middle of the Australian outback makes it special in itself. It's an Australian film, but it feels very European. Most memorable, however, is its obscure atmosphere, evoking a sense of vague menace whose origins are not clear until the end of the film. The moments of greatest terror, shot in slow motion, have a surreal and otherworldly quality. The frequent steadicam passages through corridors and dreamy bathroom scenes are a little reminiscent of Kubrick's The Shining, but without feeling like the film is ripping it off. You can tell in every shot that it was carefully planned, and the sets of the house where the film takes place were all carefully tailored to everything. All that's missing to make Next of Kin a horror masterpiece is a more polished plot. The film wasn't seen by many audiences in its time, and if it wasn't for Quentin Tarantino (who considers it the best Australian film ever made), it would probably have fallen into obscurity. But it will finally be dusted off in full glory on Blu-ray this summer, along with other Australian genre gems. (14/05/2018)

All the time I was thinking: Is this an Australian horror? It has so much in common with Italian giallo, even with great music, that I had to make sure of it. Excellently tuned mysterious horror, which is labeled as a slasher, but the giallo label suits it better. It's not explicit, well, not much, but it is more atmospheric and scary. (21/01/2015)