THE TAKING

Stars: Alana Jackler, John Halas, Frank Bliss, Lynaette Gaza, Olivia Szego, Gordon Price, Lynn Mastio Rice, Linda Rodriguez, Nicholas Hanson, Mia Elliott and Corinne Bush.
Writers/Directors: The BAPartists (aka Cezil Reed and Lydelle Jackson)

Rating: 3.5/5

Destined to confound and frustrate as many as it frightens and disturbs, The Taking is a determinedly non-linear dreamscape of foreboding if occasionally abstract imagery. Whether one emerges from the cinema screaming, “A work of existential brilliance!” or “Pretentious faux-artsy twaddle!” (and a good case can be made for either side), there is no denying the skill and vastness of vision that directors Lydelle Jackson and Cezil Reed bring to their feature debut.

Borrowing liberally from low-budget horror classics The Evil Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (they are hardly the first to do so, so no crime there), the young writer/directors craft a nightmarish woodland setting via a complex series of swift, bloody edits and an aural tapestry that is undeniably disconcerting. Credited as ‘The BAPartists’, after the pair’s LA-based production collective, Jackson and Reed have announced themselves with a calling-card offering of bold confidence, though critical response will be wildly divergent.

Carl (a fine John Halas) is a cuckolded young man bent on murderously avenging the betrayal by his fiancée and his best friend; Jade (Alana Jackler) is a mother barely containing her desire to slay the killer of her daughter. Inexplicably, the find themselves tied to trees in a forest and at the mercy of a demon-worshipping clan. The woods are home to an entity that feeds of the hatred and malice in damaged human souls; the ‘family’, led by a hooded emissary of the otherworldly force, collects and sacrifices his offerings.

It is a solid B-movie premise that may have been milked for ironic fun or OTT genre thrills. But the young filmmakers have auteuristic intentions and instead explore the set-up by employing a strong psychological element that suggests that hate-filled memories will damn the living. The Taking is steeped in memory, loss and grief; the spirit of Marilyn (Olivia Szego) and the bloody visage of her killer (Frank Bliss) tug at Jade’s subconscious as she flees into the woods.

There is a strange dichotomy that exists at the dark heart of The Taking that affords the film some contemplative resonance. From his sunny place above the tree-line from where he speaks down upon his minions in portentious, subtitled soundbites (“Your vessel is merely a cache of hatred”; “Your legs cannot carry you beyond the ambit of this holt“), the raison d’etre of the ‘presence’ is to consume the evil that blackens the souls of many. Carl and Jade, as tragic as their plight is, are not innocents; they are on a path to commit their own sinful acts when they are taken. The family, assumed to be Horror 101 hillbilly killers at first glimpse, soon seem more like contractors, merely at the service of their ‘boss’. A final image suggests there is no shortage of people driven by wicked thoughts; despite the blood-soaked imagery and recognisable slasher-film elements, does The Taking really exist to send the message, ‘Just think happy thoughts, everyone…’?