Coffin Rock (2009)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Sadly Over-hyped

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Not tense or thrilling, Coffin Rock mixes some well rounded drama with ridiculous and laughable "horror". The Oirish madman has some delightful hilarious monologues as he slips into comic madness. The idea of the couple trying to conceive is interesting, and it could have made a great thriller. If only it hadn't revealed the loony's intentions so soon. It should have built upon a fairly absent character, rather than showing us a vicious Kangaroo beating to begin with. Anything after that just seemed tame by comparisons. This is the danger of making a simply serious film on such a low budget. Had it some comical moments, or quirkier scenarios, the entertainment could have made up for the shortcomings. Not exactly worth your time.

. . . since filmmakers can get away with peppering this FICTIONAL story with such graphic civilized world no-nos as having a man with anger management issues swinging a poor little baby kangaroo against his wall until its brains are jelly, and biting a large fish in half. Maybe Aussies view this as some sort of macho survival-of-the-fittest BS, but it's clear to any educated person that the ill-fated fish and doomed marsupial each had more brain power than COFFIN ROCK's wretched main human character (Evan, played by Sam Parsonson, who is obviously one "-son" short of a hat trick). TAXI DRIVER's Travis Bickle is about as much of a loser as you'll see on American film, and even HE can come up with unforgettable succinct tag-lines (such as, "You talking' to ME?!). However, perhaps U.S. film goers are spoiled. Maybe down under you can point the camera at the sun on an overcast day, and folks will watch the footage patiently for 90 minutes, hoping for something to happen. COFFIN ROCK is one of those totally predictable anti-thrillers, where you can see every tiny twist of the plot coming from a mile off. It is distinguished only by the nearly unprecedented and totally gratuitous animal slaughter, a clear throwback to yester-century.

I must admit that there was a time when I took the unfortunately wide held view that all Australian movies were crap. I avoided them like the plague.For me Hollywood was king. Big budgets, big stars, big special effects, bigger explosions. One day I was in the local Video Ezy and saw a Cate Blanchett movie called Little Fish. I did not even know that Cate made an Australian movie until I put it in the DVD player. Wow, what an experience. Low Budget, local actors, no special effects , no Hollywood BS. Just gritty, believable, local storytelling. From that day forward I have watched nothing but Aussie films.I found Coffin Rock to be superb. As for being predictable, we are all just guessing as to what happened after the final scene. Everything about the movie is excellent. The storyline, the acting , the direction. I must admit that cheating wife movies are not amongst my favorites, but this was handled thoughtfully, and it did not make me want to throw the DVD at the wall.

"Coffin Rock" starts out pretty interesting and slow. A couple unable to get a child and building up some relationship problems because of this goes to an Invitro Clinic to try solving their problem. The man gets his sperm tested but unfortunately the woman catches the attention of a strange young guy working at the clinic. The guy decides to follow the woman and make her fall in love with him and this is the first point the viewer wonders about motivation because it seems pretty random and is barely hinted at. The guy, Evan, follows the couple to their home in Coffin Rock where he starts working in a cray business and lives in a trailer just to try to get near the woman.From here on you pretty much know where its going... the woman gets in a one night stand with Evan after having trouble with her husband who is afraid to read the results of his fertility test and starts acting strange. The woman immediately regrets her drunk misjudgment and realizes that Evan is a little coo-coo and clingy... but to top it off the next pregnancy test is positive. From here its kind of like the Horror Version for "Fatal Attraction" with the roles reversed. The man gets to know about the pregnancy and starts celebrating while his woman is busy trying to hide the truth. Of course Evan gets stranger and invades the privacy of the couple until everything leads to disaster."Coffin Rock" builds up tension with moody music, beautiful landscape shots and the slow rising dread around Evan whose past is hinted at in obscure telephone calls to his dad. The acting is superb and helped a lot to get the viewer through the first hour of the movie which is taking damn long for the plot to unfold. Problem is that there is now reward for the viewers patience. The more Evan shows his maniac face the more ridiculous the movie gets and at all times its pretty tame on the violence. Its pretty obvious that "Wolf Creek" was an influence on the lingering dread and atmosphere, the depiction of a kind of cynical and at times joking madman and of course the dozens of cool landscape shots. Anway this movie falls flat because most of the things Evan does are stupid and you are left in the dark about his motivation to follow right this woman and his strange fixation on her child. Except for some fast flashbacks to his dad who of course is dead by now nothing is clear. If you think that around 80 minutes you saw a lot of ludicrous scenes just wait for the finale because they really went overboard with Hollywood clichés there. The last 20 minutes of the movie seem so incredibly forced and yet still as boring as the opening of the movie I really wonder what happened. If you like moody slow thrillers watch "Coffin Rock" for 70 minutes and leave the rest to your imagination. The acting of Evan and the lead woman is great and the creative cinematography and music are also pretty good but the plot is a total mess and pulls everything down.