Points for Trying

I swear this thing isn't going to be entirely about horror movies.

But here are two more.

Acolytes

Is there such a thing as the opposite of a blessing in disguise?

Jon Hewitt's Australian horror film Acolytes is a rare thing: one where the main focus is on machinations of plot. The whole isolated teens being killed off one-by-one thing can still be done well – a recent example being All the Boys Love Mandy Lane – but it's nice to see a horror movie deliberately going in directions not necessarily telegraphed in its opening moments. This, however, is also what leads to its main issue.

Acolytes revolves around three teenagers – actually played by teenagers! – and two older men. Mark (Sebastian Gregory), James (Joshua Payne) and Chasely (Hanna Mangan Lawrence) are high schoolers and not the most model students. James is going out with Chasley, while Mark is clearly harbouring strong feelings for her. James and Mark also have a strange past with a local, older bully, Gary Parker (Michael Dorman) – he did something to them not made clear until well into the film. Meanwhile, the kids come across a body in a shallow grave in local bushland, and track down the man who buried it: a killer named Ian Wright (Joel Edgerton).

It's difficult to tell where this film will go, and that's something to admire it for. It's also its major failing; the film is overloaded with story at the expense of tension. Some scenes that could act as suspense sequences – characters being captured, even a death scene – are omitted completely. It would be better if the story were more compelling than it is, but it doesn't quite get there. A shift of focus could help; we don't ever really get to understand the character of Ian or exactly how he works.

Another issue is that characters often do things not because people would do them, but because they look good on camera. It's all very pretty, but "scary" should trump "aesthetically pleasing" in a horror movie.

Edgerton and Dorman are, as usual, strong. The kids are less so, although Mangan Lawrence shows promise that shines even stronger in The Square, another film where she appears with Edgerton. The boys aren't as strong, although this could be put down to their dialogue and some rather awkward editing near the start.

It's not a great film, but a commendable one. It essentially went straight to video in its home country – it made some film festival showings, and played in one cinema, for one week, in Sydney, before being released on DVD a couple of weeks after – and a long time after its completion. So while it's not brilliant, it deserved a lot better than that.

6/10

So this one practically went straight to video while Dying Breed – a movie worse than a rectal prolapse – got a big cinema release and ad campaign. The only way the Australian horror industry can make me forgive it is if Natalie Bassingthwaite's Prey gets a giant release. That movie looks mind-blowing, with a captital b. For blowing.

Vinyan

Fabrice Du Welz's follow up to The Ordeal is another mixed affair. It stars Rufus Sewell and Emmanuelle Béart as Paul and Jeanne Belhmer, a couple living in Thailand who lost their son Joshua in the 2004 Tsunami. They appear happy, but are quietly falling apart. Jeanne sees who she thinks is Joshua in a video filmed in Burma, so the couple try to go there to find him.

The film starts strong. You can feel the sadness, especially with Jeanne. Once they meet up with various Thai characters, who take their money to possibly help them, it just gets more tragic, as it's hard not to feel that they are being taken advantage of. The tension builds in the first half of the film until a painful moment at the midpoint. From here, the movie should get even more intense, but the opposite happens. The characters and story start to make less sense, and Du Welz shows near-Haneke levels of disdain for the audience as the film goes to strange places – disturbing places, but by this point you're too separated from the movie to be engaged.

It's gorgeously shot, and brave in its lack or traditional horror narrative. Béart is great throughout, and Sewell is reliable – although when he loses it two thirds of the way through, it's uncomfortable viewing when it should be upsetting. The Thai actors are good too, especially Petch Osathanugrah. But Vinyan loses its way too early on, limping to its finale when it should be at its most terrifying.

4/10

I was going to make a crack about Belgians, because Fabrice Du Welz is from there, and then I mentioned Haneke. But it turned out Haneke was Austrian, so I couldn't vilify a whole nation like I wanted to.

Next time, Belgium. Next time.