Celia (1989 film)


Celia is a 1989 Australian horror drama film written and directed by Ann Turner. The film centers on the title character, whose family becomes caught up in the midst of the 1950s Red Scare, with their responses leading to tragic consequences.

Plot

The film opens with eight year old Celia Carmichael delivering a cup of tea to her grandmother’s annex at the family home. The year is 1957, in the suburb of Box Hill, Melbourne. Celia discovers her grandmother is dead. A viewing is held in the church, where Celia farewells her grandmother. Later that night, Celia is woken by screeching sounds coming from outside. She envisions a monstrous blue hand of a Hobyah reaching into the open window. Upon hearing Celia scream, her mother Pat enters to comfort her. Pat takes Celia to the backyard where the screeching is revealed to be a possum.
On a December day, Celia’s primary school teacher is reading the dark fairy tale The Hobyahs to the class. It is the eve of Celia’s birthday, and she is eagerly awaiting the expected gift of a pet rabbit. The class bully Stephanie passes Celia a drawing of a rabbit with a cross through it. Celia responds by pricking Stephanie with a noticeboard pin, for which the teacher makes her write lines as punishment. After school, whilst walking home, Celia and her friend Heather view a rabbit in a pet shop window. Heather is a girl between two friendship groups, that of Stephanie and that of Celia. Celia sees new neighbours, Alice and Evan Tanner, moving books and furniture in next door. The Tanners have three young children Meryl, Karl, and Steve. Celia sneaks into the backyard and joins in their games. At night time, Celia asks about her rabbit. Her father Ray Carmichael tells her she will not be given a rabbit for her birthday the next day, adding that rabbits are vermin.
In the morning Celia appears disappointed to find that her birthday present is a bicycle. At church service, she draws a rabbit inside the hymn book. The priest delivers a sermon deriding the Australian Peace Council, claiming it is a communist front. Celia rides her bicycle to a local quarry, where she imagines meeting her dead grandmother. Some time later there is a barbecue party at the Carmichael's. Ray finds out that Evan Tanner is a colleague at the same workplace, albeit in a different department. The bully Stephanie brings her pet rabbit and teases Celia about not having one. Celia retreats and finds solace inside her grandmother’s flat, which Celia's parents have deliberately kept locked. The camera pans over a bookshelf of communist literature. Ray bursts in, furious that Celia has disobeyed orders to stay out. The Carmichael parents resolve to clear out the room.
Another day, Celia is playing with Heather and the Tanner children at the quarry. Again she imagines seeing her dead grandmother. Stephanie and her brothers chase them into a shack where they play with a Japanese mask from Celia’s grandmother’s room. Stephanie steals the mask and Celia chases her through the woods, where she hears the screeching sound of Hobyahs. Celia makes a blood oath with the Tanner children. Later, Ray Carmichael and Alice Tanner sit in a cinema with their children, ostensibly flirting with each other. Newsreel footage at the cinema shows a rabbit plague sweeping the Australia. Stephanie comes into the cinema wearing Celia’s mask, she is chased out by Celia and the Tanner children.
One night, Ray is out drinking. Alice offers to let Celia stay the night to allow Pat to go out and meet her friend. At the dinner table, Celia shows the Tanners some old family photographs. The photos show her grandmother involved with theatre productions and the anti-war Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Later, Celia and the Tanner children use glasses pressed against the bedroom wall to listen to their parents having sex.
The next day, at the Tanner’s, there is an informal meeting of Communist Party of Australia members. The children are engaged in folding flyers for letterboxing whilst the adults quarrel over factionalism within the party. At dinner time at the Carmichael's, Ray discovers a Communist Party flyer which Celia has brought home. He is angry and demands to know what the Tanner’s have been teaching her. Ray decides to clear out all the communist books from Celia’s grandmother’s annex and burns them. Celia is upset and goes next door to Alice for comforting. Ray confronts Alice over her involvement with communist politics. Feeling protective, he forces her into an embrace which she resists. They are interrupted by the children, and he releases her.
On the condition that she doesn’t play with the Tanner’s again, Ray buys Celia the rabbit from the pet shop. He tells Celia that the Tanners are communists; bad people. Celia says they are her friends. Ray stops into the police station to inform Sergeant John Burke of his communist neighbours. On a following day at the quarry, Celia tells the Tanner children she can’t play with them anymore. Stephanie’s gang appears and throws rocks at them, calling them “dirty reds”. The children fight until a police car turns up to intervene. At the police station, Sergeant Burke canes the Tanner boys. Alice comes to collect the children. Burke berates her, suggesting that her family’s communist beliefs translate into a lack of discipline upon her children. Alice warns him not to victimise her children again or she will report him.
Ray is furious at Celia for playing with the Tanner children and grounds her for a week. Celia has a nightmare in which her grandmother scratches at her window. When she goes to the window she is attacked by the gruesome blue hand of a Hobyah. In the Tanner's backyard, Ray tells Alice that Burke wanted to arrest her, but that he had intervened to stop it. Alice tells Ray that she does not need his protection. Ray grabs her arm and threatens her with the prospect of informing his workplace of Evan’s communist beliefs, suggesting he is a security risk. Some days later, Celia finds the Tanner children in the woods. They tell her that their father has been sacked because of Ray. They blame Celia for letting Ray see the Communist Party flyer. Celia asks her mother about Evan’s dismissal, and is told Ray would never do something like that.
At night time, Celia and the Tanner children sneak out to the quarry. Inside the shack, Celia is pestered by another blue Hobyah hand. The children make effigies of Sergeant Burke, Stephanie, and Ray. In a supernatural ritual around a bonfire, they stab the effigies with knitting needles and wish death upon them. The children throw two of the effigies into Stephanie’s bedroom window. The following morning Ray has received word of the effigies from Burke, Stephanie’s father. He discovers his own effigy inside Celia's cupboard. He belts Celia severely until Pat intervenes to stop the punishment.
Another newsreel at the cinema shows the unstoppable progress of the rabbit plague. Rabbits are a serious threat to the economy and the Victorian Government is now considering banning the ownership of pet rabbits. Celia is worried she could lose Murgatroyd. Pat expresses to Alice her sympathy about Evan’s sacking. Alice tells her that Ray was responsible for it. The Tanner children tell Celia that they need to move to Sydney to look for work. At night time, in the quarry, they throw an effigy of Ray Carmichael into a bonfire, chanting “death, death, death”. The children are ambushed by Stephanie’s gang and Heather. They lock Celia and the Tanners inside the shack. Celia watches from inside as Stephanie burns the rabbit Murgatroyd with a hot poker. Stephanie’s gang leaves, shouting taunts about the government coming to confiscate Celia’s rabbit. Heather remains behind, upset at Stephanie’s cruel actions.
On a following day, Celia and the Tanner children throw bags of flour onto Stephanie and her brothers as they attend church. Alice packs all her belongings into boxes in preparation for the move to Sydney. A newspaper on the lounge room floor indicates that the pet rabbit muster has begun. In saying goodbye, Celia makes a blood oath with the Tanner children. Pat overhears the Tanner children say that Ray was trying to kiss Alice all the time. There is tension in bed that night; Pat telling Ray not to touch her. Celia lies awake in bed, haunted by screeching sounds from outside.
The next day Ray takes Celia on a fishing trip to the ocean. Later that night, Sergeant John Burke is in the Carmichael’s living room announcing his intention to confiscate Murgatroyd. Ray and Pat stand firm and won’t allow him, worried that Celia could not cope with the loss of another friend. Later that night Burke sneaks back to the Carmichael’s house and steals Murgatroyd. Celia is awoken and fights with him, waking her parents. Pat argues with Burke and Murgatroyd is spared.
After returning from school on a following day, Celia finds her mother and Burke in the kitchen. Murgatroyd has been taken. All confiscated pet rabbits are being stored at the zoo’s rabbit enclosure. Burke offers her a small puppy to look after instead. Celia hallucinates, seeing Burke as an evil Hobyah. Before class, Celia defaces a newspaper photograph of Victorian premier Henry Bolte, turning him into a Hobyah. She is punished by the new class teacher Mrs. Casey. A group of parents petition the government to issue permits for keeping pet rabbits. Their pressure is to no avail; the government standing by its decision. Celia persists in personally writing dozens of petition letters. Some days later it is announced the government will issue the permits.
At the zoo, families reclaim their pet rabbits from the enclosure. Celia and Heather search for their rabbits, but discover both are dead, drowned in a water bowl. The children bury the rabbits at the quarry. Later, Celia and Heather are left in the care of John Burke whilst Pat and Ray go to tennis. The girls dress up in their parent's clothes and makeup. Celia hallucinates and imagines Burke to be a Hobyah. She shoots him dead with her father’s shotgun. The girls disarray the house and remove jewellery to disguise the murder as a house robbery. They hide the jewellery in a nearby stream, but are pursued by Burke’s puppy. They tie the dog to the tree.
Later that night, Pat finds the girls playing in the quarry. Celia tells her they’d been there all evening. She is brought home where ambulance and police cars are in attendance. Celia blacks out. Pat discovers the bruise on Celia’s chest left by the shotgun and becomes suspicious. The police say they are looking for Burke’s puppy. Pat searches the woods, eventually finding the dog tied to the tree. She realises that Celia murdered Burke. Celia awakes from several days asleep with fever. She is told her uncle John died in a terrible accident, murdered by an unknown person. Pat tells her that the dog was found underneath the house. Ray cries in the hallway.
Stephanie Burke returns to class after the death of her father. The teacher leads the class in a prayer for Stephanie. Celia does not pray, prompting a reprimand from Mrs. Casey. At the quarry, Celia and Heather play with Stephanie’s gang. They stage a mock execution for the murderer of John Burke. Celia acts as judge, sentencing Heather to death by hanging. Heather is hanged and is shown lifeless for a few moments, before falling to the ground. She is okay.

Cast

Ann Turner was a graduate of Swinburne who had worked at Film Victoria and the Australian Film Commission as a consultant. She was inspired to write the film by an article in the paper about the Bolte government's rabbit muster in the 1950s.
The script was written in 1984 when it won the AWGIE for Best Unproduced Screenplay.

Release

Celia grossed $23,336 and ¥ 32,255 at the box office in Australia and Japan.

Home media

Celia was released on DVD by Second Run on March 30, 2009. It was later released by Scorpion Records on February 26, 2013.

Reception

from Chicago Reader praised Smart's performance, and Turner's passion for the project, while stating that the film's storytelling "isn't as streamlined as one might wish". Janet Maslin of The New York Times offered similar praise towards Smart's performance, as well as Turner's slow building of tension. Maslin however, criticized the last third as "going too far". Brett Gallman from Oh the Horror gave the film a positive review, writing, "Certainly a unique experience, Celia is that rare film that captures childhood anxiety and highlights its very literal horrors by subtly accentuating its more figurative ones." Chris Neilson from DVD Talk awarded the film 4 out of 5 stars, praising the film's acting, and called it "a low-budget forerunner of Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth capturing the shift from childhood fantasy to stark adult reality".