It comes just months after Tom Sainsbury’s film Loop Track, released last November, explored the hidden dangers of walking alone on the tracks around Piha. Inspired by the comedian’s chilling real-life encounter, the part thriller, part psychological horror sees a nightmare unfold against the backdrop of the Waitākere Ranges.
The remote and expansive Waitākere Ranges promise a sense of calm. City familiars, well-weathered by office air conditioning, exhausted by a banal buzz or anxious over social confrontations, expect to find escape in the lush bush.
In Loop Track, this is the situation that Ian (Tom Sainsbury) finds himself in. The inexperienced hiker, who’s anxiety-ridden, hyper-aware and fleeing the insistent notifications of many missed calls, arrives at Eyer Forest Park Loop Track looking to clear his head. However, once he enters the thicket, there is no relief — Ian suspects he’s being watched by something in the trees.
But could this mysterious shape just be a mirage resulting from stress-induced paranoia? Or, is the tramper actually being followed?
Loop Track, which screened earlier this year at Whānau Mārama NZ International Film Festival, and overseas at Screamfest Los Angeles, SXSW Sydney and Celluloid Screams and Mayhem in the UK, was born from a simple and deeply terrifying image. Tom Sainsbury, writer, director, producer and lead, explains it came after an eerie encounter with a far-off dog walker in the dunes of Piha.
“Someone on an isolated bush walk seeing a figure in the far distance. They can’t make out exactly what they’re looking at, but the figure’s presence feels malevolent.”
It’s a fantastic premise. The image alone — a dark and foreboding shape half-hidden, or created, by the trees — is shudder-inducing and stressful. It’s a poignant, locally set nightmare reminiscent of many other horror stories; think The Blair Witch Project, It Follows, or even the excessively pulpy Slenderman.
In this iteration, the situation is an uncertain nightmare. Ian is tempted to attribute the figure to his spiralling anxiety, but he can’t shake the idea that this is a real threat. The audience is pulled into Ian’s visceral, psychological horror, experiencing the torturous mystery from his experience as he struggles with trusting his instincts.
This mystery is not the only form of torture present along the trail. Early on his walk, Ian encounters Nicky (Hayden J Weal), an upbeat and socially ignorant seasoned hiker, who insists on disrupting his solo tramp. Then, stopping at the first hut of three, they encounter a honeymooning couple, with the enthusiastic, cool Monica and self-assured Austin (Kate Simmonds and Tawanda Manyimo).
The unlikely group creates both conflict and reassurance for Ian, as he edges closer to a mental breakdown.
Loop Track.
They hear out his anxieties and encourage him forward on the hike, but also undermine and dismiss his panic. In return, Ian projects his paranoia and mistrust outwards, accusing them of heavy misdeeds (offering some wavering apologies along the way). After days of discomfort, the group decides Ian must be sent home, sending Nicky as a guide for the final part of the trail.
These tensions, in Ian’s self-doubt and among the increasingly concerned group, build and build over the first two acts of the film — almost to the point of frustration.
This build is aided by a haunting and hollow score and soundtrack by Mike Newport, reverberating with taonga pūoro, echoing, uncanny vocals and the plucking of dissonant strings (one of the real highlights of the whole production). The haunting sound design drags the audience into the tightening spiral, as the search for the root of the horror grows more urgent.
This pressure is unrelenting in one expertly composed scene at the end of the second act.
Ian sprints back down the trail and runs into Monica and Austin, claiming that “it” has killed Nicky. Due to thoughtful omission on the filmmakers’ part, the couple and the audience are granted the same amount of knowledge. We know Nicky has disappeared, while alone with Ian. We know that Ian has become increasingly paranoid and erratic. We know that Ian was seeing things in these trees... but never had confirmation that others could see them too.
The couple makes their guess. Austin pulls a knife on Ian and they move past. And, once they’re further down the trail, they stop to take a breath. Then, with a sudden, bloody and punctuating blow, we find out whether they made the right decision.
The third act of Loop Track is a monstrous and unrelenting thrill ride, with polished and gory practical effects. Photo / Milon Tesiram
With this genuinely unexpected and gnarly moment, the film undergoes a dramatic genre shift, moving from spiralling psychological thriller to monstrous and bloody slasher. In the last act, sympathies shift as the final survivor confronts the root of the horror, and faces a bitter reality — fight or flight. It’s a well-earned payoff that barrels forward with keen momentum, following the massive swell of tension.
Loop Track is based on a simple and frightening premise. And the filmmakers push that premise to its limit, drawing out every ounce of dread, tension and action they can. The cast also works hard to bolster the tensions and drama, with intensely watchable performances from all who feature.
There’s a clear love and care for horror that emanates throughout the film. It echoes Craven’s Scream, Carpenter’s The Thing, and even Spielberg’s Jaws and Jurassic Park, while maintaining a grounded and distinctly New Zealand sensibility. It even tiptoes into the gothic, post-colonial horror that our national cinema so often does, as characters navigate a haunted land, pursued by the great terror of unfinished business.
It’s this care and consideration that will likely see Loop Track become a classic within the New Zealand horror genre. It balances offbeat humour with thrilling scares and a pertinent allegorical story of anxiety, adopting genre-specific references to curate an explosive new work.
You won’t find a moment of escape in Tom Sainsbury’s Loop Track, but it will delight with its creepy and unrelenting terrors — with imagery and sensibilities that will haunt a new generation of horror and New Zealand film fans.
