Taglines: Stay alive or die trying.
The Furies Movie Storyline. Borrowing from the similar setup of Predators, The Furies sees protagonist Kayla (Airlie Dodds) kidnapped and dropped into the middle of nowhere via a coffin-like box. After finding other empty boxes like hers, Kayla soon discovers she’s in the midst of a deadly game that pits masked killers against women.
As she attempts to find her fellow kidnapped friend, Kayla discovers the line between ally and foe isn’t so clear cut. Writer/director Tony D’Aquino attempts to shake up the well-trodden slasher formula with his feature debut. While not entirely successful, the blood and gore flow fast and free.
For the most part, The Furies plays like a by the numbers slasher that we’ve seen countless times before. D’Aquino tries to inject an air of mystery by changing up the players. There’s not one masked maniac and final girl, but many. The game element complicates matters by switching up motivations for the characters; there’s a little bit of strategy involved for the masked beasts. It comes in to play for the women attempting to outlast these axe and sickle-wielding men, too. But the dialogue is often pretty silly, and the new additions to the slasher formula are surface level only. There are a lot of questions that go unanswered.
With a title borrowed from Greek mythology, it seems as though D’Aquino might be going for a feminist slant, but that’s not exactly the case. The three Furies in Greek mythology were the goddesses Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, who represented anger, jealousy, and vengeance respectively. For the central ladies of the film, they embody those traits, and that’s about as far as the script takes them. In other words, they’re fairly bland and one note. Dodds does give it her all, though, and makes for a sympathetic final girl.
The Furies In ancient Greek literature
Featured in ancient Greek literature, from poems to plays, the Erinyes form the Chorus and play a major role in the conclusion of Aeschylus’s dramatic trilogy the Oresteia. In the first play, Agamemnon, King Agamemnon returns home from the Trojan War, where he is slain by his wife, Clytemnestra, who wants vengeance for her daughter Iphigenia, who was sacrificed by Agamemnon in order to obtain favorable winds to sail to Troy.
In the second play, The Libation Bearers, their son Orestes has reached manhood and has been commanded by Apollo’s oracle to avenge his father’s murder at his mother’s hand. Returning home and revealing himself to his sister Electra, Orestes pretends to be a messenger bringing the news of his own death to Clytemnestra. He then slays his mother and her lover Aegisthus. Although Orestes’ actions were what Apollo had commanded him to do, Orestes has still committed matricide, a grave sacrilege. Because of this, he is pursued and tormented by the terrible Erinyes, who demand yet further blood vengeance.
In The Eumenides, Orestes is told by Apollo at Delphi that he should go to Athens to seek the aid of the goddess Athena. In Athens, Athena arranges for Orestes to be tried by a jury of Athenian citizens, with her presiding. The Erinyes appear as Orestes’ accusers, while Apollo speaks in his defense. The trial becomes a debate about the necessity of blood vengeance, the honor that is due to a mother compared to that due to a father, and the respect that must be paid to ancient deities such as the Erinyes compared to the newer generation of Apollo and Athena.
The jury vote is evenly split. Athena participates in the vote and chooses for acquittal. Athena declares Orestes acquitted because of the rules she established for the trial. Despite the verdict, the Erinyes threaten to torment all inhabitants of Athens and to poison the surrounding countryside. Athena, however, offers the ancient goddesses a new role, as protectors of justice, rather than vengeance, and of the city. She persuades them to break the cycle of blood for blood (except in the case of war, which is fought for glory, not vengeance).
While promising that the goddesses will receive due honor from the Athenians and Athena, she also reminds them that she possesses the key to the storehouse where Zeus keeps the thunderbolts that defeated the other older deities. This mixture of bribes and veiled threats satisfies the Erinyes, who are then led by Athena in a procession to their new abode. In the play, the “Furies” are thereafter addressed as “Semnai” (Venerable Ones), as they will now be honored by the citizens of Athens and ensure the city’s prosperity.
Euripides
In Euripides’ Orestes the Erinyes are for the first time “equated” with the Eumenides (Εὐμενίδες, pl. of Εὐμενίς; literally “the gracious ones”, but also translated as “Kindly Ones”). This is because it was considered unwise to mention them by name (for fear of attracting their attention), the ironic name is similar to how Hades, god of the dead is styled Pluton, or Pluto, “the Rich One”. Using euphemisms for the names of deities serves many religious purposes.
Sophocles
In Sophocles’s play, Oedipus at Colonus, it is significant that Oedipus comes to his final resting place in the grove dedicated to the Erinyes. It shows that he has paid his penance for his blood crime, as well as come to integrate the balancing powers to his early over-reliance upon Apollo, the god of the individual, the sun, and reason. He is asked to make an offering to the Erinyes and complies, having made his peace.
The Furies (2020)
Directed by: Tony D’Aquino
Starring: Airlie Dodds, Linda Ngo, Taylor Ferguson, Ebony Vagulans, Danielle Horvat, Tom O’Sullivan, Jessica Baker, Kaitlyn Boyé, Harriet Davies, Steve Morris, Dean Gould, Leon Stripp
Screenplay by: Tony D’Aquino
Production Design by: Gareth Davies
Cinematography by: Garry Richards
Film Editing by: Adrian Rostirolla
Makeup Department: Natalia Ladyko, Helen Magelaki, Rebecca Needs
Art Direction by: Harriet Macarthur
Music by: Kirsten Axelholm, Kenneth Lampl
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Shudder
Release Date: October 30, 2020
Visits: 267
