Sent a horrifying pornographic video featuring his recently deceased daughter, a grieving father swears retribution. “A very badass REVENGE flick.” — Harry Knowles, Ain’t It Cool News
Kastrissios deftly builds that momentum to the point that the audience actually cheers with each excruciating turn.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2009
The Horseman 2008
This raw and relentless lo-fi thriller trades star power and big-budget superficiality for gritty realism and ferocious performances and joins the pantheon of brutal revenge pics such as Straw Dogs and Last House on the Left, films which refused to sanitise the ugly reality of their gruelling subject matter. The film sets up the thrust of its narrative right from the jaw-dropping start. A father has found out that his runaway daughter has died of an overdose and he wants some answers. Discovering that she had been abused in some filthy homemade porno, his rage becomes white hot, and his sole purpose to rid the world of every scumbag involved. Things become complicated when an innocent female hitchhiker unexpectedly joins his mission of hellish retribution. The gifted young director Steven Kastrissios has created a hybrid road movie that careens from thriller to all-out horror. Warning: not for the squeamish. — AT