Ascendant

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.