In Vitro

A disturbing secret threatens a couple’s relationship in this rural-set sci-fi thriller starring Succession’s Ashley Zukerman.

Like many farmers tending to land and livestock around the country, Layla and Jack live an isolated existence. With their son away at boarding school, Jack toils away, experimenting with biotechnology to breed cattle, while Layla quietly laments her child’s absence and her strained relationship with her husband. When Jack is injured during a storm-induced blackout – in what he dismisses as an incident with the cattle – Layla begins to probe the true nature of his experiments. As Jack’s controlling behaviour intensifies, an upsetting discovery ruptures the monotony of their rural idyll.

Writer/directors Tom McKeith and Will Howarth have teamed up once again following their warmly received 2015 debut feature Beast. Co-written with star Talia Zucker (Lake Mungo, MIFF 2024) – who plays Layla alongside Zukerman’s Jack – their thought-provoking screenplay tackling the dynamics of possession and manipulation was developed after being selected for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab in 2016. Meanwhile, cinematographer Shelley Farthing-Dawe imbues a haunting energy to the plains around Cooma and Goulburn in New South Wales, which serve as the moody backdrop to this tense, outback-set sci-fi thriller.

“A masterstroke in nerve-shredding cinema. Its timely, unsettling and thrilling narrative will burrow deep into your mind and stay there for days.” – Cinema Australia