Video exhibition, 4 min loop, 2004 (Exhibited at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces,
Melbourne)

“Cheapjack horror thriller … Nothing but shocks and gore, but the beginning of the wave of such deplorable movies which flooded the world’s screens towards the end of the decade.”

Leslie Halliwell (Halliwell’s Films Guide, sixth edition)

Vengeance is Mine is a hybrid interpretation of the horror genre. It is a representation of the Slasher film’s Final Girl hero, decontextualised and placed in the surrounds of the Italian art film mise-en-scene, with bright red blood against (what would otherwise be) a clean white wall. Beyond the look of the piece is the character of the Final Girl who screams, fights, falls, gets up, is wounded but ultimately wins her way to the conclusion of the Slasher film. Hers is abject terror personified. She has witnessed the horror forced upon her through the mutilated bodies of her friends and has been forced to look death in the face. She alone must find the strength to kill the monstrous psychopath. The Final Girl is usually the last one left from both sides, as she has killed her attacker, and potential rescuers have been murdered long before the film’s end. Intelligent and resourceful, the Final Girl fights to save her life with courage, skill and anger.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre directly influences the soundtrack in this piece, as do the experimental techniques and methods used in Horror and Spaghetti Western films. The sounds are at once terrifying and sublime, bringing the viewer to a place where beauty and horror are one.

Performance by Carla Yamine of The Town Bikes

Sound design, mixing and recording by Phillip Pietruschka.