‘Lost Gully Road’ Review
Stars: Adele Perovic, John Brumpton, Jane Clifton, Eloise Mignon, Alexander Capper, Lewis Revell | Written by Donna McRae, Michael Vale | Directed by Donna McRae
A young woman, Lucy, is alone in an isolated house awaiting her sister who is soon to be joining her. It seems she is there to get away from someone and soon here and her sister will be able to start a new life fresh.
Now I say ‘it seems’ because like much of the movie, nothing is made completely clear. Why is Lucy here – not really sure. What has happened in her past to mean she is taken meds that her sister keeps telling her to take – who knows? Why mustn’t she use her phone – something about being tracked on social media maybe? Who is the ‘bad man’ she is escaping from – no idea. I’m not a movie goer that needs everything explained but some details would be helpful.
On top of this Lost Gully Road is slow. And not in a good horror movie slow burn kind of way, just in a way that not a lot happens. This soon feels like a short movie idea that someone has tried to stretch out over an hour and twenty minutes and it hasn’t really worked. Because we get lots of scenes of a bored character. Lucy goes for walks in the woods, she gets drunk on her own, she does a bit of shopping – none of it is very interesting. There is a small suggestion of something supernatural happening but it’s only mentioned briefly.
Even though Lucy is on the run from someone bad we never get any kind of sense of danger. There’s a little intrigue because the viewer doesn’t know anything but there’s no tension created by anything and things only begin to start happening in that regard in the last ten minutes, and it’s not worth the wait.
That climax to Lost Gully Road, the moment everything is built up to is underwhelming too. It’s all very reminiscent of The Entity but not as good and it all kind of comes out of nowhere after a ridiculous reveal.
But with all that said, there are some positives with Lost Gully Road. The score is decent at times, when it works, it works very well. But unfortunately for much of the time it feels a bit out of place. I kept thinking that in a different movie, a different setting, the music could have been much creepier and more effective. Lead actress Adele Perovic as Lucy puts in a good performance when she is given something to work with. It’s hard to impress when your walking through woodland but when she has something to sink her teeth into, she’s mostly impressive.
Unfortunately with Lost Gully Road, the negatives far outway the positives and despite being a well enough made film, with decent actors, it suffers from just being a bit boring. Sometimes being ‘okay’ is a much bigger crime than taking risks and failing, so it’s hard to recommend Lost Gully Road.
** 2/5
Lost Gully Road is available on DVD and Digital now from Wild Eye Releasing.
