‘Went Up The Hill’: Thessaloniki Review

Dir: Samuel Van Grinsven. New Zealand/Australia. 2024. 100mins

A moody and sombre ghost story about grief, control and letting go of toxic relationships, Samuel Van Grinsven’s atmospheric follow up to 2019 coming-of-age tale Sequin In A Blue Room plays like a dark-hearted cousin of All Of Us Strangers. Like Andrew Haigh’s film, Went Up The Hill revolves around the emotional resonance between the characters rather than traditional ghost or horror film mechanics. That not to say that Grinsven’s film is not tense or disturbing, although he takes his time getting to that.

Van Grinsven grips the mood so tightly it feels almost bruising

Went Up The Hill premiered in Toronto and is making its European bow in Thessaloniki’s International Competition. It will be distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Vendetta Films. The presence of Cannes-winner Vicky Krieps and Stranger Things star Dacre Montgomery – looking a million miles away from that show’s moustachioed and mulleted Billy Hargrove – along with its restrained but ultimately rewarding chills, means other territories are likely to follow suit. 

Jack (Montgomery) and Jill (Krieps) might, as the title suggests, sound like the nursery rhyme pair but they are, in fact, strangers, connected only by a death. Jill is mourning the loss of her wife Elizabeth, when the dead woman’s estranged son Jack arrives at the wake in rural New Zealand claiming to have been invited by Jill – although it soon turns out she was previously unaware of his existence. The reaction of Elizabeth’s sister Helen (Sarah Peirse) is another indication that something is not quite right.

As Jack and Jill cautiously try to connect, nightfall brings a third entity into the equation. Elizabeth is back, possessing each of the pair in turn – though, in the morning, while each remembers speaking to the dead woman, neither can recall being her mouthpiece.

The switch is achieved by performance rather than special effects, with Krieps and Montgomery modifying both their physical movements and delivery to something just fractionally more gruff and less emotional and, as the story progresses, more dangerous. Van Grinsven grips the mood so tightly it feels almost bruising; an appropriate sensation for what we will soon learn about Elizabeth’s attitude to others. It’s winter and the modern home Jill shared with her wife, with its big windows and clean lines, has an austere feel that is heightened by the cold winter light.

The idea of possession is double-fold. Elizabeth doesn’t just want to take over the body of each person individually, but to also control the other when she is in that form. Initially these visitations seem as though they might offer closure for the living, as Jack is trying to recover a lost memory from childhood while Jill is grappling with the circumstances surrounding Elizabeth’s death. As another much less altruistic agenda emerges, things take a carnal turn – shot with a graceful, sculptural precision by cinematographer Tyson Perkins, who deftly employs light and shade to heighten the characters’ sense of isolation. It proves doubly unsettling as both Jack and Jill are gay, and underlines the strength of the dead woman’s spirit.

The restrained approach from Van Grinsven – reteaming for the script with Sequin collaborator Jory Anast – helps mitigate the film’s final third, when a few familiar horror beats begin to make their presence felt. The measured sound design and scoring also have a slow-build power. The house has the creak and groan of an old ship, and a lilting piano theme from Hanan Townshend is counterpointed with breathy, unpredictable hums and vocalisations when Elizabeth enters the atmosphere.

Longing proves a powerful force for both the living and the dead and, as Elizabeth increasingly exerts her grip, it becomes not so much about whether Jack and Jill can let go but whether they can take back control. No such problems for Van Grinsven, who steers strongly from first to last.