Movie Review: “The Loved Ones” or “AM I NOT PRETTY ENOUGH” x666

When brooding protagonist Brent super politely refuses to go to the big dance with class weirdo Lola, she flips her goddamn shit and tries to ruin all the nice things. With help from her lecherous father they whisk Brent away from his normal and not insane girlfriend and set him up on the date of a lifetime. I mean that in a bad way, like the date is shit, fucking drinking milk on prom night style. Also torture. Who does that?

“The Loved Ones” is an Australian torture porn film of sorts, but before you go “Oh, great, that’s just what I need, some dude getting his crank chopped off… I’m trying to enjoy my mac and cheese with little smokies here!” consider the following.

One: everyone’s accent is hilarious so it kind of makes the torture scenes, which are long and just plain gnarly, a little bit more bearable. For instance, I just kept repeating that line from the Simpsons where Bart calls Australia and the kid that picks up keeps saying “emirgency.”

Example: “Oh no, Lola is stabbing knives into Brent’s feet, better call the EMIRGENCY SIRVICES.”

Two: Although everything leading up to the climax of the movie is just friggin brutal and makes the viewer just feel terrible, the resolution to the story is prettay… prettay… prettay… prettay good.

*SPOILER ZONE OOooOoOOoOh”

So when I jumped into watching this movie for FREE ON YOUTUBE *gasp whaaaaa????* I had no idea what I was getting into. I thought it was like a shitty haunted house thing. That it is not. It’s like a torture fest mixed with a little zombie action that culminates in a satisfying dose of revenge in favor of the protagonist, Brent. The film making did a great job of creating a totally awful, hate inducing, just… just awful antagonist with Lola. She’s like the spoiled kid we all went to elementary school mixed with a rampage killer. Plus, she has her own theme song that is just as revoltingly saccharin as her. It kind of became a sing along whenever that song played and I defy you to not get it stuck in your head.

UGGHHH FUCKING AWFUL, THAT’S A REAL SONG? FUUUUUUUUUCK.

Anyway, all the pain inflicted on Brent was really disturbing, yet the entire time I was like “Ha ha… You fools, he’s a cutter, your pain delivery techniques have no power here!” That’s the best I could do as far as rooting for Brent. But he gets injected with Draino or something, has his feet impaled to the floor, is carved up with a fork, has salt thrown on his wounds and a hole drilled in his skull and then gets tossed into what basically amounted to a zombie pit. I’m sure he took more damage that but the bottom line is that he gets fuuuuucked up. But… he lives.

Brent is able to stage multiple escapes but the last two are the best. He did everything I shouted at him to do, and more. He blasts the shit out of Lola’s dad’s face with a razor, then absolutely lights him up with a kitchen knife before chucking him in the zombie pit. During that fight Lola gets punched in the face super hard too.

The conclusion of ‘The Loved Ones” was satisfying in a somewhat classic way. Lola gets what she deserves and Brent is able to use his smarts and unflinching will to survive to make it back to his girl. Aaaaaalright.

Overall Rating: Seven OH MY GOD! HOLY SHIT(s)! out of Ten.