The Loved Ones (2009)
Here I am again, coming late to the party on movies that most people have already seen. Let’s do this thing.
The Gist: It’s the big end of the year dance and Lola Stone’s hopes of attending with troubled Brent have been dashed as he is going with his girlfriend. Brent then disappears and spends a prom night in a living nightmare.
Prom Kings & Queens: Xavier Samuel (Brent), Robin McLeavy (Lola ‘Princess’), John Brumpton (Daddy)
My Take: This movie was a good reminder as to why I prefer supernatural and psychological horror over torture horror. That being said this flick offered the usual sadistic abuse of torture porn with the results of said torture being…fucked up.
Spoilers from here on
Lola is one twisted sister who does not take rejection well and when Brent turns down her invitation, he becomes her latest victim in a long line of unfortunate boys who have been the objects of Lola’s affection. The movie starts with Brent and his Dad driving down a deserted road shortly after Brent has gotten his license. All is happy until he nearly hits a half-naked stunned, young man walking in the centre of the road. The car crashes killing his Dad and we then jump to 6 months later and the day of the dance with Brent going with his girlfriend Holly after turning down Lola.
There are unresolved issues between Brent and his Mother following his Dad’s death and neither seems to have handled the situation well; they look drawn and gaunt and appear to both be abusing various stimulants to deal. Brent heads off to get high, with his dog who is beaten nearly to death, and ends up being abducted by Lola’s father, Daddy (Brent is abducted, not the dog).
Things go downhill from there as Brent wakes up to a family dinner with Lola, Daddy and Bright Eyes who is clearly damaged beyond any thought or cognition. Lola injects something into Brent’s neck which seems to stop his ability to speak. Brent somehow tells her he needs to go to the bathroom and she forces him to do so in a bottle she is holding after Daddy threatens to nail his member to the chair. Lola comments “It’s crying, maybe I should lick it or bite it off” (paraphrasing). He kicks her away and then Daddy nails his feet to the floor with knives.
Brent then gets to see Lola’s scrapbook with all the boys that came before and then comes the final stage of her claiming Brent as she carves her initials in his chest with a fork followed by Daddy throwing salt over the bloody wound. Ok, so the torture up to this point isn’t that bad. What comes next, well, yuck. Lola starts to drill a hole in Brent’s head so she can pour boiling water in his skull and boil his brains to be like the others. The others being the past boy toys who have been kept in the cellar and fed roadkill and are now sub-human beasts.
That was an odd turn. Don’t fret, Brent is not doomed. Holly has contacted the sheriff whose son was the boy who Brent almost hit when he crashed the car, and the sheriff is off to save Brent from Lola. Nope, she hits the sheriff in the head with a cleaver and tosses him into the pit with Brent and the dead beasts whom he killed. Lola leaves Brent in the pit and heads off to kill Holly, who just happens to be on her way to Lola’s to find her man. Brent is resourceful and even after the trauma he has been through, he is able to get out of the pit and almost hits Holly with the cop’s car but swerves just in time and runs down Lola.
Yah or Nah: I would say Yah as long as you can handle watching the torture scenes. It was a good movie and had a few twists that kept if from being a stale horror flick. The Lola character is so cheery in her savagery and the relationship she has with Daddy is fitting given the content of this flick. This was defiantly one of those movies where I was rooting for the bad girl to be ended.
Dawning Creates 
I really enjoyed The Loved Ones, and have been telling people about it since I first saw it a couple of years back. Glad you mostly liked it, nice write up 🙂
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Thanks. The whole thing with the drill and boiling water…gives me creeps but I liked the creatures in the cellar. It was a strange twist.
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