Two Heads Creek

A horror film habitually embraces magnified barbarity, supernatural tripe, lacerated limbs, or lacerated expectations. But, look deeper, and you’ll find that there’s a bit of thematic or political nuance sprinkled into the bloody concoction. Just look at how Jordan Peele’s Get Out tackled racial alienation, or how Wes Craven’s The People Under the Stairs toyed with underclass oppression. Jesse O’Brien’s Two Heads Creek is no different, although this time around, the political subtext isn’t truly profound. 

The film opens with a title sequence imbued with red-hued animation of severed limbs. But what’s even more unsettling is the off the cuff portrait of post-Brexit Britain, which comes immediately after the jaunty title card. A close-up of a Polish sausage lying in the street fills the screen, which then gets run over by a tearaway on a bike. Near the mangled crime scene is a highly contentious poster that reads, “Immigrants Go Home.” The political climate of Britain is on-edge, at least for the Polish protagonist we soon meet.

We enter a Polish Sausage joint, where timid and cloddish butcher Norman (an endearingly craven Jordan Waller) is wallowing in a state of confusion and grief after his mother’s recent passing. Given the conversation of immigration going on across the nation, Norman is faced with jerks who vandalize his shop with bigoted statements, trying to coerce him to go back to Poland. Despite the distasteful remarks, Norman is determined to have his mother’s funeral at the butcher shop, for she was also a skilled butcher. Norman’s spirited twin sister Annabelle (an infectiously charismatic Kathryn Wilder), for the time being, is a dropout wannabe actress, who recently became the face of StoolAway, the trendy new laxative on the market.

“…the people of Two Heads Creek…have a hunger for human flesh and a senseless hatred of immigrants.”

Norman and Annabelle unite for their mother’s funeral, but it isn’t long before they find out that their biological mother is still out there. They trace her whereabouts to a bucolic little town in Queensland, Australia called Two Heads Creek. Out of curiosity, they venture from Great Britain to Australia. The twins are understandably unprepared for the peculiarity and horror they are about to face in this crooked little town.

On a crowded tour bus – which is packed with Asian immigrants – Norman and Annabelle meet Apple (Helen Dallimore), the Two Heads Creek tour guide who welcomes them into the community with open arms. As the siblings get off the bus, they’re instantly greeted by some of the zany inhabitants of the titular town. There’s Hans (Gary Sweet), the apparent leader of the group, Apple’s husband, Noah (Kevin Harrington), and their son Eric (a hilarious David Adlam), who’s always wearing an unfitting tank top.

As the people of Two Heads Creek are either suspiciously genial or overly contemptuous, the twins soon realize the bizarre residents have a hunger for human flesh and a senseless hatred of immigrants.