GFF 2025: Went Up the Hill
This ghost story suffers from heavy-handed symbolism and a script full of exposition, but the quality of the lead actors – Dacre Montgomery and Vicky Krieps – make up for some of these issues
Samuel van Grisven’s sophomore feature is a ghost story valuing metaphor and atmosphere over plot substance. When Jack (Dacre Montgomery) hears of his mother’s death, he travels to New Zealand to attend the funeral – only to find that no one invited him. His mother’s widow, Jill (Vicky Krieps), asks him to stay with her for a while so she can get to know her wife’s son, who was taken into foster care overseas before she entered the picture. But it soon becomes clear that the dead woman is far from gone, and she is ready to use both Jack and Jill for her unfinished business with the other.
The title Went Up the Hill in conjunction with the symbolic character names feels heavy-handed, although the film does benefit from its nursery rhyme logic and the chills of a childhood denied despite revealing its twist too early. Montgomery and Krieps, delivering a two-hander for most of the runtime, are excellently matched and find understated ways of conveying both their own characters’ disquiet and the other personality that invades. The washed-out colour palette and dread-filled sound design enhance the sense of the uncanny. The script relies too much on exposition, but as Jack and Jill both want to catch up on lives they missed – or did not understand – the dialogue only occasionally feels forced.
Went Up the Hill weaves a fraught atmosphere with real chills and jumps but the themes of the film do not quite reach its heart, muting the emotional impact it's trying to explore in this tale of familial trauma.
Went Up the Hill has its UK premiere at Glasgow Film Festival on 8 & 9 Mar