Writer and director Tony Williams’ film Next Of Kin (1982) is a film of effortless misdirection and sparing steadicam shots. Stylistically Next Of Kin parcels out information and context with ambiguity and restraint. It’s a film that is carefully orchestrated for a slow burning, gradually mounting tension whose inevitable payoff is an insane and violent catharsis.
The film begins by investing in the interior spaces of the retirement home. These spaces are as obscured by moody lighting as they are by Williams’ montage. It’s a dreamy space the becomes progressively abstract as steadicam shots become more regular. This expressionistic treatment of space reaches its zenith in the slow-motion sequence, shot from overhead, of Linda (Jacki Kerin) running down the corridors.
Linda’s investigation into her inheritance and the death of her mother lead her to her mother’s diary. This text offers a past that seems to be repeating itself. Events in the diary, read in voiceover, parallel the events happening to Linda in the present. This condenses time textually in much the same way that the slow-motion in the film’s climax condenses time physically for the audience.
In the third act of the film it transitions into the slasher genre, moving from the subtle mounting tension to a sudden kinetic outpouring of violence. The ambiguity of the narrative becomes almost irrelevant as Linda races to escape a killer. The latent fear becomes the text, obliterating what preceded it with a calculated crescendo of tension and dread.
The profoundly atmospheric images Williams’ conjures are aided and given additional urgency by the synth score by the late Klaus Schulze. As is the case with the steadicam Williams’ only uses Schulze’s heart pounding themes as dramatic punctuation. The music suggesting an otherworldly dreaminess that holds the promise of terror.
Next Of Kin is an unheralded masterpiece of horror that has drifted into relative obscurity. Next Of Kin is just as expertly crafted as any film by Argento or DePalma. It’s a film that shifts drastically between horror sub-genres without ever feeling contrived or artificial. It’s a film worthy of canonization as one of the great horror films of the eighties.
