Kori (Emily Browning) and Nick (Jai Courtney) have just got engaged: nothing says ‘You’re my world’ quite like pushing an engagement ring into view whilst someone is eating a pub lasagne. Kori says yes, but you you get the impression that’s because she can’t quite fathom how to say ‘no’; this is one of those sunk cost fallacy relationships, where the only way forward is through. Life goes on much as it has been doing: that is, Kori continues her affair with boss Derek (Damon Herriman) only now whilst wearing an engagement ring, and their respective partners remain surprisingly clueless. It’s only when Derek and wife Diana’s dog vomits a used condom onto their bed that people finally start catching on.
You know, it’s funny: the cuckolded partners seem more irritated than anything else, like this is just an unnecessary issue to factor into their otherwise safe, predictable existence. There’s no screaming recriminations or suitcases being packed; well, Diana gets a little more towards that eventually, but not straight away. It’s just a bloody inconvenience, quite honestly. Nonetheless, Nick feels like he wants to do something; he’d like his fiancée to be a bit more…well, a lot more ideal, somehow, not bored and looking elsewhere. Support comes from an unexpected place when he accompanies his dad on a fox hunt: some little brute has been eating his mother’s beloved chickens, so they track down the animal and Nick takes the lead, running ahead to find the fox trapped on a fence. He levels his gun at it: it begs him, please, don’t do that.
It is surprising that Nick responds to this in a fairly unsurprised way, but then he’s a bloke who apparently doesn’t surprise very easily in general. The fox (voiced by Olivia Colman!) wants to do a deal with him: she knows what’s been bothering him, and she has a solution, which she trades for her life: simply toss Kori into a magic hole in the woods, she explains, and voila, she’ll come back to you as your dream woman: this would be cheery, compliant – and horny. The fox even shows him the hole in question; Nick finds himself pretty open-minded on the premise (for reasons already discussed) and even shares what he’s discovered with Diana (Claudia Doumit). In fact, Diana comes in on the whole thing as an accomplice; it’s during one of her regular jogs with Kori that she suggests a spot of trail running and then, before you know it, Nick’s there to help throw Kori into this very, very deep hole in the woods.
Of course, there are some issues; a talking magpie, the film’s End Boss gossip (the late, great Sam Neill!) tries to explain to Nick that the fox is a bloody liar, and what’s more, he’s a silly prick for listening to her. It’s frankly the best guidance anyone gets in the entire film, but there’s not all that much time to worry about it, much less to listen. Just when Nick is getting concerned that what he’s actually done is killed his missus, Kori does come back: naked, smiling, and rather odd. Due to the fact that Kori is in fact naked and smiling, it takes Nick a little while to really address the third characteristic, but as her behaviour gets weirder, it can’t be ignored forever. His life, as he knew it, begins to unravel. What, exactly, has he done? And are things any better now?
There are so many ways that this sort of magic realism could play out and in other hands, it could have been very dark indeed – even a bit folk horror – but The Fox is achingly funny from the very start. We start the film knowing this is how it’s going to be, with a framing voiceover by Colman which also ably sets our pace and tone, outlining the key traits of species we encounter on a regular or semi-regular basis: for instance, dogs are degenerates, cats are torturers and humans? A bit pathetic, all told, ready to brush off any deeper truths or any existential problems with glib platitudes like ‘It is what it is!’ It’s that daft, passive attitude to life which gets our characters into the absurd situations we have here. Our characters almost-know that, and could have worked on things like adults, but why work on things when there’s a magic hole in the woods?
This supernatural plot comes with a zingy script which keeps drawing attention to the great ridiculousness at the heart of the film, though never dispensing with character. These normal people are our absolute bedrock, after all. People talk in a very plausible way about implausible things in this film, with special mention to Jai Courtney, who turns out to be an immensely talented comic actor, whose laidback Aussie demeanour works perfectly against what unfolds during The Fox. As much as you could slap him, you feel for him, even though his ludicrous demands on his partner are what got him into this mess. But Kori, too, goes on a journey during the film, and gets the gift of seeing things more from an outside perspective. Well, to a point. If there’s a deeper message here – and honestly, you can get through the entire film simply enjoying Sam Neill swearing at people in magpie form – then it’s a kind of modern, relationship-centric riff on the whole ‘be careful what you wish for’ motif so beloved of fairytales (often fairytales with their own host of talking, tricksy animals). Unusually in The Fox, the animals themselves have a few regrets, too: perhaps human beings, even with their comfortable shelters and adequate provision of chickens, aren’t really all they’re cracked up to be, either. But what can you do? It is what it is, you just have to make the best of it, and so on.
It’s really great to see director Dario Russo bringing some of the deadpan, absurd comedy of his series Danger 5 to the screen accompanied by some of the visually slick, creative elements he’s recently developed as part of his highly successful horror oeuvre; the special effects are great, the film itself is laugh-out-loud funny, and it made for a perfect closing film at this year’s Celluloid Screams.
The Fox (2025) was the final film of this year’s Celluloid Screams Horror Film Festival.