Coffin Rock (2009)

Coffin Rock (2009) – A woman unable to conceive a child with her husband, despite 15 months of trying, makes the drunken mistake of sleeping with a young stranger. The stranger then goes to terrifying lengths to prove his paternity.

From the producer of Wolf Creek comes another Aussie horror/thriller called Coffin Rock. Jessie (Lisa Chappell) and Rob Willis (Robert Taylor) are married and living in a small fishing community charmingly known as Coffin Rock, in South Australia. They are a couple whose relationship is under stress because they’re trying for a baby. Since her husband Rob is having problems impregnating her they go to a medical clinic for help. While they are there they catch the attention of a psychotic young man who works there named Evan (Sam Parsonson) who becomes obsessed with Jesse within moments of laying his eyes on her. He then integrates himself into Jesse and Rob’s lives.

After a drunken row, Jessie has a secret one-night-stand with Evan, the mysterious, kangaroo keeping Irish stranger with a major crush on her. Miraculously she gets pregnant and tells the naturally delighted Rob it’s his. But then creepy Evan becomes obsessed with her and the baby he is convinced is his. For most of the movie he spends time applying psychological pressures on Jessie who becomes increasingly distraught. Eventually though his behaviour switches from an eerie presence and threats to outright violence.

Despite the Wolf Creek links in terms of “from the makers of…..” they are totally different films. Wolf Creek was violent and bloody, Coffin Rock surprisingly has very little of the red stuff, and is much more of a psychological thriller. There are a few nasty moments (and one which is totally uncalled for in my opinion…….poor roo……..) but a lot of the terror comes in the form of not knowing what Evan is going to do next, and more importantly what lengths he will go to.

It’s a relatively small cast, with our main three getting the majority of the screen time. The innocent husband Rob is played well and he is the one I felt for the most. I really liked the actor who played him, Robert Taylor, in Storm Warning, a much more straight forward horror film I reviewed last year, but he was still very good here. The cheating wife was played by Lisa Chappell who puts in a great performance. Playing a flirty character doesn’t mean she asked for what she got, but her moment of weakness could potentially (I don’t do spoilers!) 🙂 ruin her chances of a normal family life with her husband. As the film progresses I did feel sympathy for her, and as more and more people got dragged into this situation, she did a good job of portraying the fear she was going through. Which leads us on to the villain, Evan. Sam Parsonson in his feature film debut puts in a solid performance in a tricky role. Whilst not being in my opinion a conventionally good-looking man, I believed he could sneak his way into Jessie’s bed so to speak. As he goes through some changes later on, and we see more and more of what makes him tick, hats off to the guy for a great performance as a believable and menacing character. He was no Mick Taylor but he was frightening enough.

The plot, while far from original, is actually pretty entertaining. I like the fact that they went a different route for a change and made the woman in the relationship the one that is unfaithful. As I’ve seen in other reviews, Coffin Rock does play out like an Australian low-budget version of Fatal Attraction, but that’s really not derogatory in any way. It does feel a little stretched out in parts, and maybe predictability tends to get the better of the film during the final act, as a number of genre conventions are spotted a mile away. Yet the impact remains due to our invested interest in these characters, and overall Coffin Rock is a good watch. It just needed more in the way of shock and surprise or committed character development to lift it to a higher rating.

Posted by Tysoncarter182 on March 25, 2013

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