ON THE FOURTEENTH NIGHT OF HALLOWEEN … I watched Next of Kin (1982) by Tony Williams. After her mother's death, a young woman inherits a large estate that has served as a nursing home for many decades. She left this place and its surrounding rural township years ago. Her return evokes haunting memories and questions. Amid the quiet melancholy of caring for withered residents and the gloomy shadows of the Victorian building's long corridors, the woman begins to suspect that bloody deeds are being hidden from her.
Although this is an Australian movie that was made at the height of Ozploitation, shortly after The Road Warrior and shortly before Razorback, its narrative derives from very traditional gothic sources, harkening all the way back to the beginning of horror in tales of creaky old manors, dark family secrets, mistaken identity, and murders concealed in the walls, found in such novels as The Castle of Otranto (1764) and The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794). With very little alteration, the same script could have been filmed in 1930’s Hollywood together with Hitchcock’s Rebecca and James Whale’s The Old Dark House. Far from being a detriment, however, the spookiness is enhanced by giving us such an unexpected encounter with gothic creaks and cobwebs in the sunny Australian outback. It’s slow and moody and well-shot, and I recommend it for a smoothly chilling watch.
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