It's hardly a secret that the Australian outback is fraught with dangers. The variety of potentially deadly animals, the heat, the terrain and the plant life make it far from welcoming. Adding a malicious human element to that doesn't exactly improve survival chances, but in The Banished, the particular variant of malevolence takes a surprising tack.
The Banished follows the story of Grace, who returns home to the town where she grew up after the death of her father. It's a far from loving return for Grace, who we learn was abused by her late father and only managed to escape thanks to the intervention of her brother, David. However, he has seemingly gone missing in the wilderness and concerned for his safety, Grace attempts to travel through the bush to track him down. What she finds, after a tumultuous journey that includes losing her tour guide, suffering a serious injury and communicating with a mysterious stranger via radio, is far from what she hoped for.
Telling a story out of order is nothing new, and it's been used as a narrative device for decades. In the case of The Banished, it's used to drip feed information to the audience without having to reveal the true nature of the story, something which works incredibly well. There's an eerie quality to grace and David's town, and an even darker contrast to the outback. It has a sinister undercurrent that is completely unspoken and yet feels ever-present, while the danger Grace faces in the woods feels like a far more overt threat, even though it evolves throughout. After the disappearance of her guide, it becomes clearer that things are more complicated, and after Grace is injured, the man on the radio becomes a dream-like figure. Is it real? Are the events that unfold after Grace becomes injured all a part of her mind unravelling? It feels like something which is open to interpretation and the fact that it works so well is a credit to director Joseph Sims-Dennett.
There's an understated realism to the acting performances which supports the whole narrative in The Banished. Meg Eloise-Clarke is essentially on screen for the entire film and delivers a quietly haunting performance of a woman wracked with grief, anger and worry over her only remaining family. While Leighton Cardno and Gautier de Fontaine do well with their limited parts, and the final twenty minutes provides something truly haunting, it's Eloise-Clarke who really carries the film and holds the attention of the audience.
The Banished is something truly unusual. While undoubtedly a horror film, it doesn't conform to many expectations of the genre, especially within the particular “girl lost in the spooky forest” strand that it so easily could have fallen into. There's something far more gritty and grounded at work that actually goes a long way to making the film all the more terrifying – eschewing the supernatural and the creepy for the realistic, and in a sense making the whole thing far more horrifying as a result. It's a slow burner that will stay with you for days after watching.
The Banished is available on digital platforms 28 July.
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