Celia is a weird blend of genres, tones, and inspirations that really shouldn’t work as well as it does, but it nevertheless manages to keep you watching. There are parts that will remind you of Monster in the Closet, Stand by Me, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Even if it is a bit overlong and a little off kilter, it will still manage to stick with you long after you see it.
Set in a small Australian town in the ‘50s, it centers around a nine-year-old girl named Celia (Rebecca Smart) who just lost her grandmother. Things look up when a new family moves in next door as she will finally have some new friends to play with. When Celia’s father (Nicholas Eadie) learns they are communists, he sets out to ruin their lives and turn the town against them. Celia eventually joins forces with her newfound friends to turn the tables on her father.
While Celia doesn’t sound overtly horrific, it is still an unsettling little picture. The early scenes where she imagines monsters at her bedroom window sort of preclude the real-life horror that is to come. Sometimes the monsters aren’t under your bed. Sometimes you’re related to them. There’s nothing that I would actually call “scary” here, but the scene where the hateful schoolchildren torment Celia’s pet bunny is effective and disturbing.
Any coming-of-age movie that combines monsters, the Red Scare, anti-rabbit sentiment, and voodoo ceremonies was going to be a bit uneven. Even when the pacing is dawdling, Celia will be rewarding to patient viewers if they stick with it. It’s further proof that Ozploitation flicks are a good source of offbeat thrills that you just don’t find in an American picture.
We had this at the video store I worked at in the early ‘00s. I never watched it because the awful video box made it look like some sort of cheap knockoff of The Bad Seed. While there is some of that movie’s DNA in Celia, it has a personality all its own. I’m kicking myself for not checking it out sooner.
AKA: Celia: Child of Terror.
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