The Faceless Man Project (2024)

The Faceless Man Project

Australian Horror is hit or miss. There are hits like Killing Ground, The Babadook, Wolf Creek, and The Loved Ones. But then there are the misses, such as Needle, Roadkill, and 2009’s Prey starring Natalie Bassingthwaithe.

Unfortunately, it falls into the latter group although it does show promise.

The Faceless Man follows cancer survivor Emily (Sophie Thurling) and her friends as they head to a secluded holiday home in regional Australia. While there they are terrorised by multiple groups of people and a paranormal entity that haunts them over the weekend.

The film opens with Emily confronting her alcoholic father Harrison (Brendan Bacon), a man who has been absent from her life. The opening is great, I loved this scene it made me feel for Emily so much more with Thurling’s performance elevating it even more. She was emotionally distraught at her father’s appearance and Bacon was also decent in the role as Emily’s dad.

It continues on with some great scenes notably a rave and an awkward but funny holiday house tour by Aussie screen regular Andy McPhee; they were well written and well directed by Writer/Director James Di Martino but unfortunately it goes downhill shortly after.

I’m hooked with the beginning; it kicks off as an eerie drug fuelled odyssey filled with hallucinations but unfortunately wraps up in a mess one that seemed to have no idea what to do with its protagonist The Faceless Man.

There’s bad guys aplenty almost all of them interesting, fun and unusual and well worth exploring further but The Faceless Man? Absolute waste. This film would have been much better off without him. He appears at seemingly random moments to terrorise Emily & co but really amounts to nothing – one character gets ‘molested’ by The Faceless Man but the moment has no bearing on the character whatsoever, they don’t talk about it it’s quickly forgotten, with it having no effect on the characters actions.

I’m not even sure what The Faceless Man was. A manifestation of Emily’s dad issues? A certain scene suggests otherwise. Maybe it’s a paranormal entity tied to the very fabric of the holiday house that supposedly drove the previous occupant mad. Again a certain scene suggests otherwise. It was frustrating as I wanted an answer to what The Faceless Mans purpose was.

One redeeming quality was the use of opera music to introduce some of the antagonists, it was loud and abrupt and really drew your attention to the character a good decision by music supervisor Bart Walus.

As previously mentioned, Andy McPhee as Eddie was a blast to watch. Think of him as a loveable Aussie larrakin meets Mick ‘Wolf Creek’ Taylor. Also fun to watch was Daniel Reader as Barry ‘the problem solver’. Not that he gave a wonderfully believable performance or anything, he just had some fun with it and made the film enjoyable. Lucas Pittaway from Snowtown fame played Emily’s wannabe boyfriend Kyle. I have to say, Snowtown was terrible.

It might have been critically acclaimed but it didn’t have any redeeming qualities other than actor Daniel Henshall who has come a long way since then. But in The Faceless Man, Pittaway does well and being a quiet achiever himself pulls off the stuck in the friend zone role with ease. And lastly lead actress Sophie Thurling also does well but her best scenes come at the beginning of the film where she emotionally confronts her absentee dad.

However credit where credit is due, James Di Martino crowdfunded this film and produced through his own production company Chapter 5 Studios so props to him for getting it made. The script and concept were shaky but promising. I just felt really let down by the lack of explanation of The Faceless Man in this movie.

The rest of the antagonists were fun and scary enough without some kind of mysterious fear inducing entity terrorising Emily and her friends like that man did. This one goes on my miss list but I will keep an eye out for future Di Martino releases.

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