In the heart of Western Australia, Miley Tunnecliffe’s debut feature Proclivitas arrives like a long-buried secret clawing its way back to the surface. This psychological horror, written and directed by the Perth-based filmmaker, is now marching toward cinemas on March 19. What sets it apart isn’t just its supernatural chills but the way it weaponises the most ordinary human frailties—grief, nostalgia, and the fragile scaffolding of recovery—into something genuinely terrifying.
Clare (Rose Riley) is barely holding her life together as an addict in recovery when her mother’s sudden death drags her back to the hometown she fled fifteen years earlier. There she collides with Jerry (George Mason), the teenage sweetheart whose memory she could never quite extinguish. A tragic accident once ripped them apart; now a second chance at love seems within reach. But as old flames rekindle, so do ghosts—literal and figurative—that refuse to stay buried. The film’s logline says it best: some ghosts haunt you, others want to own you.
Riley delivers the kind of raw, lived-in performance that makes you forget you’re watching an actor. Her Clare is equal parts steel and glass: fiercely protective of her sobriety one moment, heartbreakingly vulnerable the next. Mason matches her beat for beat, their chemistry crackling with the awkward tenderness of people who once knew every secret and are now terrified to rediscover them.
Tunnecliffe’s direction is astonishingly assured for a first feature. She glides between tender romance and creeping dread with such subtlety that you barely notice the moment the floor drops out from under you. The script smartly refuses to treat addiction as window dressing; instead it becomes the central battlefield where the demonic force wages war. Influences from Japanese horror’s slow-burn psychological pressure and even Alien’s bodily violation are present, yet the film never feels derivative—it feels distinctly, defiantly Australian.
Technically, Proclivitas is a masterclass in resourceful filmmaking. The sound design alone deserves awards—every distant creak, every distorted whisper, every heartbeat-like thud ratchets tension until your own pulse joins the soundtrack. At its core, the film is a devastating metaphor: the demon isn’t some random evil entity; it is the embodiment of relapse, shame, and the seductive pull of the past. Tunnecliffe never lets the horror eclipse the humanity. Every jump scare is earned by emotional stakes, every supernatural flourish rooted in Clare’s very real psychological fractures. It’s the rare horror film that leaves you both terrified and moved, forcing you to confront your own “demons”.
The overwhelming impression is one of confidence, craft, and courage. This is the kind of debut that announces a filmmaker to watch for decades. If you’re in Perth or anywhere across Australia, clear your calendar for March 19. Proclivitas isn’t just the best local horror in years—it’s a visceral reminder that the scariest monsters are often the ones we invite back into our lives ourselves. Prepare to be possessed.
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