Slow burn Aussie chamber horror rewards patience

The set-up contains two very familiar tropes. It's a dark and stormy night, and there's a knock on the door.

To be more specific, it's 2am, and a man (Brendan Rock), is sitting alone in his mobile home at the edge of a caravan park when the knocking begins.

It doesn't stop and eventually he opens the door.

Outside is a young woman (Jordan Cowan), soaking wet.

The man reluctantly lets her in, and they begin to talk. She asks to use his phone, but he says he doesn't have one and there's a payphone she can use near the park's entrance, and he can take her there.

But something feels a little off and that unease only increases as the action proceeds.

He eventually reveals his name is Patrick, long after you'd think she'd have asked or he'd have introduced herself, and she doesn't respond in kind.

There are other oddities that make us wonder who is telling the truth, and how much, and just who these people are and what is really going on. Are Patrick's solicitous actions - offering a shower, giving her food and a drink and a dry shirt - sincere or sinister? On both sides, stories change, questions and statements are repeated and ignored - like the payphone offer - and there are what appear to be quick flashbacks that add to the mystery, and to the sense that something is going to happen. But what, and to whom?

The actors are very well cast and do fine work in helping to create the ambiguity of the characters they play.

Australian horror movies have been doing well in recent years, and interestingly, some have been directed by duos, including Sissy (Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes) and Talk to Me (Danny and Michael Philippou). You'll Never Find Me is another two-headed movie, with Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell directing from the latter's screenplay.

With its sparse, sometimes strange and cryptic dialogue and long pauses between many of the lines, You'll Never Find Me sometimes feels like Harold Pinter got reincarnated to pen the script.

The directors and cinematographer Maxx Corkindale create plenty of atmosphere with the visuals, though occasionally there's what might be called "movie darkness". Even when it's apparently supposed to be pitch black - there's a power outage at one point - the audience can usually see something. You just have to go with it. The film's sound design - the thunder, the rain, the music - is well crafted but as with so many movies nowadays, how the dialogue is placed in the mix seems almost to be an afterthought. It can hard to hear what the characters are saying and given the sparsity of the lines, this is even more annoying than usual.

If you're looking for a thrill ride of a movie and buckets of blood, you won't find them in You'll Never Find Me This film requires patience - it's a slow burn chamber piece - but the rewards are there if you're patient.

I wasn't altogether sure how to take the ending, but on reflection I think I like it.