Picnic at Hanging Rock
While I found the first third of Picnic at Hanging Rock quite tedious, as it is essentially a costume drama set in the Australian outback at the dawn of the 20th Century, from there on, it becomes a very unsettling movie. The film centers on a girl's private school and the dynamics within it. A group of the girls go on a field trip to Hanging Rock. 426
Soon, mysteriously, three of the girls one of the teachers go missing. From here, the movie is part murder mystery, part horror film, part Gothic romance, aided by the pan flute score by <PERSON> (who would go on to be a master cheese whiz new age music in the late 1980s). The mystery and the tonal construction of the latter parts of the movie are masterfully done, as it is never made clear if horrific individuals, something supernatural, or something entirely accidental has taken place. <PERSON> would go on to make a slew of interesting movies, but this one remains my haunted favorite of his. 529