British director Peter Strickland didn't make his debut here in the UK but in Romania and like his subsequent films it was a horror movie but also like his subsequent films it wasn't a horror movie in any conventional sense. "Katalin Varga" is a story of revenge. Katalin is a rape victim and from that rape she had a son. Now, eleven years later the secret she hid from everyone rises to the surface. Her husband and her village treat her as if she were a 'whore' and banishes both her and her son so Katalin sets off in search of revenge.
Although set in the present events could just as easily be happening centuries ago. Katalin's means of transport is a horse-drawn wagon and the setting is the Carpathian Mountains. It's a film mired in the past, like the attitudes of its protagonists and it reaches its grisly conclusion in unexpected ways. Strickland may not be the most prolific of directors but he remains one of the most original working in world cinema today and this powerful, disturbing picture certainly marked him out as an exceptional talent.
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