'The Banished' (2024)

‘The Banished’ follows Grace (Meg Clarke) a young woman returning to her home town following her father’s passing. Trying to track down her brother David (Gautier de Fontaine) Grace embarks on a hiking journey through the Australian wilderness. Things soon deteriorate as she gets lost and is confronted with sinister forces at play.

The film starts with the passing of the Jennings’ family patriarch, for which seemingly only Grace has showed up for. Finding it hard to be back home, Grace tries to track down David to reconnect. Unable to reach David, Grace visits with uncle Rex (Tony Hughes) for guidance. Unaided by his advice, Grace also learns that her aunt Margy (Cassandra Hughes) has passed.

Later seeing a ‘missing’ poster for Margy at a local store, Grace resolves to search for David herself, going to a known hangout for junkies and seeing her former teacher Mr. Green (Leighton Cardno) nearby. Paying him to show her the way to a mysterious forest dwelling commune, Grace coerces Mr. Green into showing her the way, assuming David is there.

With a solid set-up, primed to join the contemporary horror pantheon, ‘The Banished’ seems to drop off after the first act. The story veers towards exploring past trauma, as it is hinted that Grace’s departure from the family home was an abrupt one. The film slowly uncovers the past of an abusive household which resulted in her running away from home at a young age and that had also affected David, facilitating a habit dependent life.

Too vague and containing little character development, ‘The Banished’ touches on a few familiar issues, such as complicated and abusive family history, isolation and guilt, but does not manage to fully engage with the subject matter.

Working with what she’s given, Clarke delivers a formidable performance as Grace, incorporating layers of fear, trauma and anxiety as she wades through the unfamiliar terrain in search of anything or anyone that may be of help. What the story fails to do is to provide for an emotional anchor. We understand that Grace is hurting, but we’re not given enough to understand exactly why. This failure to entice results in a muted response where her suffering peaks, providing for a hollow viewing experience.

Seemingly compiling every known modern horror cliché, the film goes above and beyond when it comes to familiar tropes. Haunting visions, a mysterious cult, an undisclosed traumatic past and uncomfortable scenes of brutal slaughter all contribute to deliver a cacophony of, at this point, overused and tired material.

Not to say that there is anything wrong with the familiar, but the use of tropes only works if applied in a novel, unexpected way, rather than chucking everything at the viewers and expecting the storm of ideas to land with grace.

Atmospheric and confoundingly dizzying, the sequences depicting everything Grace has gone though up until the halfway point of the film are effective. Overlaying stills of what has transpired over a roaring fire, Grace reaches a climax, as she has to process everything that she has been through. Stylistic and transformative, the film manages to elicit some semblance of character evolution, yet due to Clarke’s overall unexamined persona the transition rings trivial and has no lasting impact.

With an oversaturated story, ‘The Banished’ tries ever so hard to develop a modern horror film, whilst also attempting to remain mysterious and alluring. Working against itself, the film manages to do a lot of things whilst accomplishing very little. Set in the beautiful wilds of Australia, many viewers could be lulled into a sense of unease due to the beautifully captured shots of nature paired with disturbing imagery.

Unfortunately the film overstays its welcome and does not pick a single path to go down. By trying to incorporate too many different elements and failing to deliver crucial story information, the narrative is too vague to track, ultimately resulting in a dismal experience. Perhaps best to avoid, ‘The Banished’ seems as lost, in terms of an overall point, as Grace in the woods.

Score: 1/4