Popular reviews

• 

  Review by Sean Baker 5

  The kind folks at Second Run (a UK-based Blu-ray/DVD company specializing in the release of important and award-winning films from all around the world) sent me the Celia DVD. They thought I would appreciate it because it's similar to The Florida Project in many ways. And I did. It also turned me on to Ann Turner, a filmmaker I knew nothing about.

  Very reminiscent of Kes as well. But darker.

• 

  Review by Edith ★★★★½ 11

  This movie dredged up some serious memories of loss, confusion, rebellion, and misunderstandings of youth. A coming of age story that isn't about the usual thematic contenders like sexual curiosity or finding your identity, but is parallel to the political struggles of the fifties using communism and conservatism through the eyes of children. How, in a fundamentally animalistic way, humans handle diversity and order. A parable akin to Animal Farm, Pan's Labyrinth, or Lord of the Flies, but definitely way darker. I honestly can't remember the last time a moment in a movie pricked my heart so hard.

  It expertly subverts where you think the story may go, slowly building on childlike wonder with seeping adult problems into the innocent…

• 

  Review by Sally Jane Black 5

  Comparing the Red Scare (or an Australian equivalent) with the rabbit plague Australia suffered in the mid-20th century, this film centers the narrative on a nine year old girl who is caught in the midst of both by virtue of her affections. The film takes pains to develop all sides of both equations while quietly but firmly making it plain where it draws the line. To put another way, while the film makes a statement about fear, fear-mongering, and our responses to both, it remembers that there are human beings involved in it all.

  At the same time, it's a strong coming-of-age story with some very dark undercurrents, which is why I suppose it gets packaged as horror. It does…

• 

  Review by Joshua Dysart ★★★★ 13

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

• 

  Review by Justin LaLiberty ★★★★

  if your dad took you to a cinema to watch a movie where rabbits were blinded and set your books on fire, you’d develop a dark fantasy world and wear strange masks too — a horror film masquerading as a coming of age film about trauma, the feminist equivalent of the first half of Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake

• 

  Review by Dr. Ethan Lyon ★★★★ 8

  Hooptober 9.0, pt.42- Rabbit Ruddigore

  11/6 Countries (Spain, UK, Japan, USA, Canada, Poland, Hong Kong, Russia, Mexico, Czechia, Australia) (COMPLETE)
  12/8 Decades (1970s, 1980s, 1960s, 2020s, 1990s, 2010s, 1920s, 1910s, 1950s, 1930s, 2000s, 1940s) (COMPLETE)
  1/2- Folk Horror Films
  1/2- Films directed by women

  Part 7 of my Second Hoopings List!

  Watched with Sav! One of the most enjoyable voices on this site and one of the best list-makers in the business.

  Ann Turner, the director of Celia, once expressed her frustration at this being classified as a horror film, a labelling that seems to have stuck as the recent remaster and release of the film as part of the All the Haunts Be Ours demonstrates. But as an expression…

• 

  Review by Slig001 ★★★½ 1

  A sort of coming of age drama set in 1950s Australia. The title character is a young girl suffering from the loss of her grandmother and growing up amidst political tensions, including the outbreak of a plague of rabbits and the underlying threat of communism. She has an active imagination, fuelled by a children's fantasy book about blue goblin like creatures. The film explores all these elements through the child's perspective, creating her own way of dealing with them as her childish innocence ebbs away. There's plenty going on, but it's all done in such a deliberate manner that the film feels like a real slow burn, though with plenty of rewarding moments as the narrative plays out. The plot…

• 

  Review by aurora 𖦹 ★★★★

  I mean if all I saw in theaters was ads about how rabbits need to be murdered, I’d be fucked up too

• 

  Review by Geoffrey Broomer ★★★½ 6

  There is this wonderful interview with Bill Griffith in Comic Book Confidential where he rants about his general hatred of Calvin & Hobbes, amongst his many points that it is an adult using children as a mouthpiece. It is a difficult balancing act when portraying the imagination of children, deciding if the world their fantasies play out against is the real world from their perspective or an adult one they function within. Jojo Rabbit's primary failing is placing its titular nazi in a world so surreal, that it never clearly defines what his perverse additions to it are.

  Though 1950s Australia is foreign to me, I am pleased to report that Celia gets it right. A little girl is under threat…

• 

  Review by Mario Melendez ★★★½

  Coming of Age films can be unique in their proposals, but this one brought from Australia can be something strange for many. It is certainly not the typical film that tells us about a person's childhood.

  From the moment it begins to bring out its true colors because it has layers of Psychological Drama, Fantasy and Horror that makes Celia a kind of different experience in film terms. I would consider it an unclassifiable film (a very similar case to Equus) but at the same time, it fits very well into the genres I just mentioned. The end of the story is sorta darker and ends up accentuating that strange vibe it has from the beginning. All seen under the…

• 

  Review by claira curtis ★★★★½ 3

  Childhood is not always bliss and Ann Turner is unwavering in her decision to showcase that fully throughout Celia.

  A whimsical score and minimal integration of fantasy elements give off an illusion of lighthearted fun even at the most grim of moments. Celia may be afraid of what screeches in the night but she is far less afraid of death or communism or schoolyard bullies or cruel-hearted adults. 

  Celia would pair excellently with Pan’s Labyrinth, particularly in how the film explores the political atmosphere within Australia during the 1950s through the eyes of a child just as Pan’s explores the political atmosphere within Spain during the mid-1940s through the eyes of a child. 

  Watch 47/61 of my 2021 61 Days of Horror List

• 

  Review by Ziglet_mir ★★★ 2

  *Collab Catch-Up Project* #26/66 

  An Australian made “horror”-driven drama with fantastical elements, Celia, digs deeper than I would have guessed, and also, provides an alternative of what true horror has the potential to be. With the backdrop of hordes of bunnies ravaging the Australian landscape during the 1950s and the threat of the Red Scare looming over the world, the Australian community where Celia lives struggles to be exactly that. This is perhaps where the “horror” lays; disagreement that cannot be set aside with little to no room of trying to understand one another. Little Celia is also dealing with the disintegration of her childhood innocence by the adults in her life (while often showing these adults as very one-sided, stilted,…