Sydney’s Nanny-State, Lockout Law BS Is Now Inspiring Legit Horror Films

Among plentiful others, you’ve got there’s The Babadook (the former), Wolf Creek (the latter), and soon-to-be-released budget flick Observance, which will hopefully be both.

The ‘why’ of it all is yet to be firmly established – the main conjecture right now being that we’re not Hollywood, and are therefore capable of being a little more creatively creepy – but Observance director Joseph Sims-Dennett has a pretty good take on it that could be classified as ‘hot’.

Speaking to the BBC, British-born, Sydney-based Sims-Dennett said that the film (which was shot in Sydney in just 11 days) was born out of the conservative, nanny-state we find ourselves in.

“Australia broadcasts this laid-back easiness but it is really a very conservative country,” he said, unwittingly giving Cory Bernardi a spontaneous but sizeable semi. “Art takes off in those periods when you’re being stifled and oppressed. There is a sort of darkness that lurks somewhere.”

He then goes on to say that Sydney is fast becoming a nanny state “suffocated by draconian lockout laws and surveillance”, thereby providing the “darkness” that gives way to horror films / art.

Now, just so y’all are aware, Observance is a pants-shittingly terrifying film in which a private investigator spies on a woman living next door, unaware that the dank as hell apartment he’s living in has given birth to a dark presence that threatens to consume him.

And this film – in which a dude literally observes a woman getting abused by her ominously creepy partner whilst he spits up tar – has listed ‘lockout laws’ as its influences.

SYDNEY: where you can’t get a bottle of wine after 10pm but can get the living shit scared out of you any day of the week.

Observance hits a few select cinemas on Sunday 3 April; watch the trailer here:

Source: BBC.

Photo: supplied.