Ascendant
Violence, cruelty, offensive language Rated on: 12 April 2021
What's it about?
Ascendant is an Australian thriller. It follows a young woman called Arya who wakes up bound and trapped in the high-speed elevator of a high-rise building that is still under construction. The lift is controlled by a man who tortures her by making the elevator go up and down. Video screens in the lift show him simultaneously torturing her father, who works for the CIA. Arya’s special powers are slowly revealed. Flashbacks show that these powers arise from her special connections with nature as a child.
What to expect
The slow-moving feature presents as a horror thriller with a fanciful scenario. It primarily deals with cruelty and violence, as well as some highly offensive language. While inherently cruel, the torture of Arya's father is obscured. Only an impression is created of the grizzly harm and cruelty presumably being inflicted - video interference stops the viewer from seeing any detail. Nonetheless the sustained focus on Arya's distress, and the implication of her increasingly bloodied father’s torture, remains likely to shock and disturb children.
Recent featured decisions
Violence, offensive language, drug use, and suicide
Set in 1973 during the US’s attempt to overthrow the Chilean government, two CIA agents are dispatched to Easter Island. As the longtime partners wrestle with their dark pasts and present conspiracies, one of them bonds with a pair of rebellious students, which threatens to send everyone’s trip to this remote paradise sideways.
