Celia (1989)

Next up on our list of Australian folk horrors is Celia, a dark fairy tale of sorts which opens with our lead, a young prepubescent girl, discovering that her grandmother has died in her sleep. From here, the story spirals outward, offering a cynical and satirical look at society that examines adult issues of political turmoil and paranoia through the games and rituals of its youngest. The result is an intelligent, often heartrending, film that was grossly underappreciated back in its day, and one that I couldn't be happier to re-evaluate nearly forty years later.

Like Philip Ridley's American folk horror oddity The Reflecting Skin, we see children struggle to make sense of senseless tragedy using scraps of things they've seen before mixed with fairy tales and folk superstitions. They play commies vs capitalists, perform voodoo rituals, and act out lynchings. They take scraps of real-world ideology, misinformation, and moral panics that they barely understand and use them in a way that exposes the absurdity in the behavior of their self-serious and paranoid parents. And, just like them, they're cruel; bloodthirsty, even. And like Pan's Labyrinth, our lead Celia is often doing things like sticking voodoo dolls with pins or putting hexes on people in her free time, and it's always kept ambiguous as to whether or not any of it is having an effect or if perhaps Celia simply believes that it is. It's all very subtle. Honestly, this could have been released through Criterion and no one would have batted an eye. I was shocked at how mature and artful it was, without sacrificing horror and shock value. The mix of its many elements and the way they're used to examine such relevant themes was a pleasant surprise. Light, bland viewing this is not. 

And my god, the finale! Celia at one point gets a pet rabbit, and this ends up being the catalyst for a series of catastrophic events that will change our lead's life and the lives of those around her forever. While politics are often just background in her story, the implementation of a real event in Australian called the '50s rabbit cull brings it to the forefront as Celia at one point has to petition the government for her right to keep a pet. Seriously, everybody has it out for her rabbit, it's like Toto from the Wizard of Oz except that instead of one old hag, the entire country is out for his blood. It's those vicious children, though, that strike fear into the heart of the viewer once Celia's fluffy bunny friend enters the picture, and every time it disappears from view you just know Celia is about to discover it stuffed into a fridge or something. In this way, it is quite reminiscent of Rule of Rose as well, an obscure PS2 horror game that chiefly involved cruel children, twisted games and rituals, blissful ignorance of trauma being inflicted by the adults that care for them, and a new pet that ends up driving someone to murder. It's often sad, and much involving the rabbit winds up downright heartbreaking and not a little hard to watch, but it gives the film teeth (no pun intended) and never once will you be looking at your watch. You're drawn into this world and its inhabitants, and won't be released until the imaginative third act has come and gone, leaving you unsettled for long after the credits have rolled. 

Technically, nothing is out of place. The film is bursting with color and visual texture. The score fits perfectly with the imagery and subject matter, and the child actors in the film are phenomenal, turning in quality work despite child actors usually being as welcome in great films as flesh-eating parasites are in one's flesh. In the end, this is a beautiful story, well-told and equally well-constructed at every turn. It's gripping, upsetting, but restrained. It's by far my sleeper hit of the All the Haunts Be Ours set so far and I can absolutely recommend this one to horror fans who are patient, and can appreciate something that isn't just supernatural horror but the horror of the human condition and the things we do to one another.