Australian horror is slowly and recently gaining global traction — the genre that used to only be recognized for modern classics like Wolf Creek and The Babadook is finally being acknowledged as diverse and fairly expansive with newer hits like Talk to Me. In its wake, the burgeoning space of Australian indie horror is also beginning to take root, with the entries of Sissy and Bloody Hell receiving widespread critical acclaim and an increasing audience. While John Balazs’ Freelance may be marketed as a psychological thriller, it fits seamlessly in the nook of Australian indie horror, finding its strongest stride in the slow-burn horror elements of its runtime. The film was on the official selection in Australia’s Monsterfest 2024 with a release not just in its home country, but in the U.S. too.
Director John Balazs and producer Marlane Ghmed collaborate for a second time after their 2021 thriller Rage, giving us a nightmarish take on the world of a freelancing video editor. Between Balazs’ understated direction and Michael Gerbino’s unflinching writing, Freelance tackles the check-to-check reality of working independently and the subsequent toll it takes while dramatizing it through the world of snuff films. It’s exactly what Australian cinema needs in terms of breaching into the psychological, dark web horror space.
What Is ‘Freelance’ About?

Katie (Nicole Pastor) is a worn-out freelance video editor who is still searching for her big break and making ends meet by editing pornography in the meantime. Despite this, she is broke, unable to fund her obligatory Melbournian addiction to overpriced local café coffee, nor pay the rent to her sleazy landlord. Instead, she doles out IOUs to the barista (Hannah Brooke) for that caffeinated elixir, and gets free meals from her friends: Kevin (Jordan Fraser-Trumble), who is in the same field, and Guy (Stephen Degenaro), who believes he is her boyfriend. Katie is more than desperate for money, so when she receives a message from an unknown sender about a lucrative video editing job, she’s reluctantly compelled to agree until she can find better employment.
The footage in question is a series of violent acts that ultimately lead to murder, and Katie’s job is to cut the different angles together and add some music to make it “scary,” as if the horrific deeds weren’t enough. As the film progresses, Katie grows increasingly uncertain that these aren’t real snuff films. Real or not, the contents and the uncertainty are malignant enough to play on her mind, invading her dreams and sapping the color from her face as she struggles to stay abreast of her normal life. We are privy to the corners of her mind that are infected with this trauma, yielding moments of scathing terror up until the gut-wrenching finale plot twist, which works because Katie is played with enough deceptive charm.
Nicole Pastor’s Organic Performance Elevates the Slow-burn Horror

Image via Prima Lux Films

Entrapped as we are in Katie’s psyche, Freelance hinges on Pastor’s performance to convey the psychological descent her character experiences. She lays the groundwork for this by adding dimension to a character who could potentially come off as unlikable with Katie’s sarcasm, abrasiveness, pride, and affinity for manipulation. Instead, she comes off as a plucky, resourceful freelancer who is buckling under the weight of her financial situation, eliciting empathy through how relatable the ordeal is. She delivers an organic performance that makes us believe we are in her shoes, trudging through the everyday, monotonous atmosphere and eagerly searching for an escape — her decision to accept the job, while foreboding, makes perfect sense.

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Once the spiral is underway, Pastor etches fear, paranoia, and uncertainty in her face at every step. With the camera often in her face, especially lit up by the glow of the computer screen, she has nowhere to hide, nor does she have to. It is reminiscent of the rawness of Cam, both low-budget horrors that create an unbearable intensity via their ultra-vulnerable protagonist. Katie’s deteriorating state is at the crux of Freelance’s slow-burn horror, as eeriness and tension hang in the air, culminating with each successive nightmare and hallucination. The creeping score by Kai Chen Lim ties each of these scenes together, crafting the acoustic manifestation of relentless anxiety that buzzes around Katie’s mind as she awaits the next episode or footage.
Performances by the supporting cast also magnify Katie’s personal hell, where Hannah Brooke gives her barista an incredulous naïveté that makes her an easy target; Degenaro plays the clueless and self-absorbed “boyfriend” whom you don’t know whether to cringe at or pity; and Fraser-Trumble’s Kevin makes for a genuine, concerned friend. However, when Katie shares the screen with each of them, she has a more relaxed chemistry with the barista than her two consistent companions. Their interactions feel slightly stiff, especially toward the beginning of the film, but as Katie’s arc unfolds, the dread-laden atmosphere eclipses any residual awkwardness — we’re too drawn to Pastor to notice the sometimes flat chemistry.
‘Freelance’ Doesn’t Know Where to Give Its Attention

Freelance’s storyline can be split into two distinct parts: Katie’s new job and her existing life, both of which contribute to her mental state. One way Balazs manifests Katie’s internal world is through the dream sequences that are filmed with the same color palette, camera angles, and lighting of the real-life scenes; so, like Katie, we don’t know that it is a dream until she wakes up. Because of this, the many genuinely terrifying scenes that are woven into the film catch us unawares, effectively making us as jumpy as Katie. It works perfectly with the commentary intertwined with the snuff films; reality and nightmares merge in the face of the depravity humans are capable of.
However, the momentum of these scares is disrupted by the sluggish pacing of Katie interacting with the real world again. While the exposition of her financial struggles clarifies her decision to continue with the project, it sets back the slow-burn pace from a creepy crawl to a repetitive limp. With a runtime that approached the 2-hour mark, Freelance likely needed another round of editing. The audience is able to gauge Katie’s increasing need for money, and it doesn’t need to be thoroughly justified at each point of the film. By cutting off the excess, the mystery plot would stand more cohesively, while the horror would enjoy the unwavering anxiety it deserves to evoke.
What the confused pacing doesn’t diminish, though, is the scorching ending, which is equal parts satisfying and haunting. Original, unexpected, and exciting endings, especially in this vein of techno-horror, can be hard to come by. Freelance gives us a morbid pay-off to the lingering tension that riddles the entire film, while also harmonizing its seemingly separate themes of painstaking freelance work and human brutality. Hopefully, Freelance becomes more than a hidden gem in Australian indie horror, especially as it ultimately engages with the idea of snuff films in a way you wouldn’t expect.
Freelance is available on VOD now.

Freelance

Freelance offers an engaging premise with some genuinely skin-crawling scares.

Release Date

January 28, 2025

Director

John Balazs

Writers

Mike Gerbino

Pros & Cons

Pastor delivers a compelling evolution at the forefront of the film.
Dread and anxiety in the film’s atmosphere keep us on edge.

The split storyline sometimes causes it to meander, dragging the pacing.
The chemistry between characters tends to be quite flat.