Lost Gully Road (2017) Review

Lost Gully Road (2017) Review

LOST GULLY ROAD tells the story of Lucy (Adele Perovic), a directionless young woman who travels to a secluded cottage in the forest to wait for her sister. With no television and little communication to the outside world she spends her days alone and drinking to pass the time. That is, until her unexpected host decides to keep her company…

Marketed as being in the tradition of THE BABADOOK and LAKE MUNGO writer/director Donna McRae’s sophomore film starts off promisingly but ultimately falls short of the mark. This is a shame as there’s a terrific initial build-up of tension and an abundance of mood to keep you interested in the short run but a lack of decent characterisation and vagueness to the script that means that the film runs out of steam and becomes increasingly repetitive very quickly.

LOST GULLY ROAD is more about subtext which I am all for if it delivers its agenda in a thought-provoking manner, unfortunately it kind of contradicts itself. McRae’s inspiration for the film was a highly publicized rape and murder of a Melbourne woman which prompted questions about a woman’s right to safety. Lead character Lucy is hiding in the forest from a man (for reasons unknown), harassed by a lecherous shopkeeper and is being spooked by an equally forward male presence in the cottage.

If anything the film seems to be about the unreliability of the female characters in Lucy’s life, from her well-meaning sister who is constantly putting off popping over to accompany her to the woman owner of the cottage who has a sinister agenda for renting it out. By having every male character seen or alluded to come across as complete gits helps with the filmmaker’s point but by having the women characters equally as dubious and flawed simply muddles the film’s agenda and ideology.

LOST GULLY ROAD would have worked better as a half-hour short. It’s big on subtext (Lucy’s outside attire nods to LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD) but short on sense and resorts to clichés in place of originality. The last section of the film ventures into THE ENTITY territory before closing with a ham-fisted last minute shock that doesn’t. Minimal character detail/motivation can only carry a movie so far, but more meat on the bones is needed to sustain audience interest/empathy, it’s sad to report that LOST GULLY ROAD falls short of doing so.

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