Hounds of Love (2017)

Hounds of Love (2017) also known as “Love Hunters” in certain French-speaking countries.

Difficult film to watch. We experience the kidnapping at the same time as the kidnapped. We see how quickly it can happen. In a split second, a life can be turned upside down. And if you’re on bad terms with your parents when the tragedy happens, it’s even worse. Life will do anything to show us good manners, one way or another. Because being jaded and rude doesn’t make for a happy ending.

Hounds of Love is a psychological thriller coupled with an Australian drama written and directed by Ben Young, released in 2016. It’s still hard to believe that this is a first film, as it’s pretty well mastered, almost to perfection. Beneath its airs of sanitized bourgeoisie, there lurks in the suburbs a couple who could easily be described as psychopaths.

One night, following a well-crafted scenario, as is their wont, they kidnap a teenage girl and hold her captive for several days. The young girl has to overcome her fear, look for the cracks in this twisted couple and hope to survive. Inspired by the horrific crimes of David & Cathy Birnie.

David John Birnie (February 16, 1951 – October 7, 2005) and Catherine Margaret Birnie (née Harrison, May 23, 1951) were an Australian couple from Perth who murdered four women in their home in 1986, also attempting to murder a fifth. These crimes were referred to in the press as the Moorhouse murders, after the Birnies’ address at 3 Moorhouse Street in Willagee, a suburb of Perth. David was the eldest of five children and grew up in Wattle Grove, a semi-rural suburb of Perth. School friends and church acquaintances recall that Birnie’s family was dysfunctional and subject to frequent rumors of alcoholism, promiscuity and incest. The family never had regular meals together, and Birnie’s parents didn’t prepare meals for their children.

As for Catherine, she was two years old when her mother, Doreen, died giving birth to her brother, who himself died two days later. Unable to raise Catherine, her father Harold sent her to live with her maternal grandparents. At the age of 10, a custody dispute allowed Harold to regain sole custody of Catherine.

Catherine met David at the age of twelve and began a romantic relationship with him two years later. Her father repeatedly begged her to leave David, as her involvement with him got her into trouble with the police, resulting in her being sent to a youth prison as a teenager. Encouraged by a parole officer, Catherine began working for the McLaughlin family as a housekeeper. She married Donald McLaughlin on her 21st birthday and had seven children. Their firstborn son was hit and killed by a car at an early age.

In 1985, Catherine left her family and resumed her relationship with David. The couple never legally married, but Catherine changed her surname by notarial deed.

Over a five-week period, the Birnies abducted five women and girls aged between 15 and 31. All but one of the victims were raped at the couple’s residence at the infamous 3 Moorhouse Street, and then murdered. The only exception was their last victim, who escaped the day after her abduction and brought the police back to Birnie’s house, thus ending their crime spree.

Their victims were Mary Neilson, Susannah Candy, Noelene Patterson, Denise Brown, and Kate Moir. Students, high-school girls, they either ran out of gas, were driving home alone at night and were seduced by the couple’s kindness (who kindly offered to take them home in their car) or directly threatened with a knife. In short!

Nothing to get excited about, except for the most psychopathic sadists.
But of course, seeing a film like this makes you an unhealthy voyeur for the duration of the viewing.

So far, I’ve done more of an exposé than a review, but I think it was essential to set the whole context.

Of course, it’s easy to dislike a film like this if you know nothing about it. You can tell yourself that it’s not original, that the dialogue is flat, that the story has been seen before… and that’s the problem!!!!

I feel like people don’t know the difference between fiction and reality anymore. Even if someone gets killed in front of them, in the street, they’re able to say it’s déjà vu on TV and there’s nothing exciting about it!

Sorry, but you can’t create dialogue that didn’t happen in a film based on true stories! Of course, you have to add a touch to keep it a film with its cinematic magic. But as long as we know that such atrocities have happened and are still happening, that’s what should make us think, not wonder how we could do better. Ahh la la… I despair of people. I really do!

So it’s not a crime to hate this film either!
If a real story that creates an empty scenario for you, based on a good initial idea, with unfilmed horror scenes, isn’t what you’re looking for, you can skip it. We won’t hold it against you! You’ll find it badly done, unspectacular, lacking in gore, while admitting (if you have a shred of gumption and heart) that all this was, once again, well-intentioned.

I don’t know how faithful the film is, or how much the couple resembles or doesn’t resemble the real thing… but the acting is undeniable, almost impossible to find fault with, and the direction is very good.

As far as I’m concerned, the pace is brilliantly chosen. Ben Young has succeeded in imposing a plot that is both breathtaking and creepy. He even manages to make his despicable protagonists empathetic at times. For almost two hours, we’re kept on our toes while being immersed in the story. It’s impossible to know what’s really going to happen next. This kind of spellbinding staging is a rarity in today’s cinema.

PS: In case Kate Bush‘s song doesn’t make it into the film!