"Is it finger-lickin' good," Lola asks, as she offers a leg of chicken to her prom date.  

Okay, "offers" is not the right word. 

"Is it finger-lickin' good," she repeats, louder this time and more manically, as she tries to force it between her potential lover's teeth, as her father bangs a hammer down with menace at a table nearby.

This is not the worst scene by far in the new Australian horror flick, The Loved Ones, which is shaking up the critical world. 

Lola Stone, played by Australian actress Robin McLeavy, is a rather twisted teen, who having been rejected by her crush for a date to the school formal finds another way to get her man.

This girl has issues.

It's quite a deviation from any role previously played by Robin, whose last two parts have been as Catherine the Great with the Sydney Theatre Company and Stella in A Streetcar named Desire.

So why did she take on such a role?

"I wasn't a horror fan to begin with but I've been converted," Robin says.

The attraction of the part of Lola was that Lola is not a victim.

"The female character is the villain, the perpetrator of the violence, it's a rare thing," Robin says.

"They are usually the screaming victim."

"She's also psychologically unhinged so there were was great scope for the character and the possibilities were boundless."

Unhinged again, is hardly a good enough descriptor for the character.

For the audition, which was held at a hotel, Robin enacted the scene where Lola straddles her captor Brent (played by Xavier Samuel whose latest role was Riley in Eclipse), and screams at him to cry.

"The casting director said there was a room full of people at a business meeting next door and could I keep it down," Robin says.

Needless to say, she didn't, and well, she got the part.

Robin, however, says she did want Lola to have a sense of playfulness and she has been successful in that goal.

Lola, in fact, plays with her captive love much like a cat plays with a mouse.

"She is a young girl wanting to live out a fantasy," Robin says.

"She's a bit unlucky in the love department and was raised in a sociopathic environment."

"She wants a boyfriend but she doesn't know how to communicate with boys."

It was quite a dangerous area for Robin to travel to in her career, not only because of the danger of typecasting, but because she genuinely feared for her sanity if she went too far in the role.

"I didn't dare go near method for this part," she says.

"I was super aware that I needed to be a bit protective of myself, otherwise by the end I would have been committed."

"Looking back, I still think I was quite manic during it."

Funnily, Robin says people are really scared of her now and afraid to approach her after seeing the movie. 

Even her boyfriend thinks he may have seen another side to his very sweet girlfriend.

"He was terrified, so we are in a good place," she says, jokingly.

"It is unsettling for people for see me like this."

"It's upfront and confronting for audiences."

The director and writer of the movie is Tasmanian-born Sean Byrne.

One glance at the trailer and a whole host of other horror flicks come to mind. 

There's certainly elements of Carrie and Misery.

Sean laughs.

"Yes, I am a big Stephen King fan," he says.

"It started with Carrie and the cabin in the woods (formula) and then I started using the rituals of the prom as instruments of torture, then merged a bit with The Evil Dead."

"Then a bit of Misery and Fatal Attraction crept in - the wronged woman."

"In the US it has been compared to Pretty in Pink meets Wolf Creek."

It's been a long two years and a race for Sean to get this his first feature film up on screen.

Two years of intense writing, looking for funding and then just 27 long days filming.

"I lived with the first draft before the original Saw (that was 2003) and was still writing right up to the start of filming," Sean says.

"It was much easier during the shoot because the story was in my head."

"I understand the world."

"I was able to answer the millions of questions you never think of, down to the tiniest thing like the colour of someone's socks."

One would think that perhaps Sean had a hard time in school with the way the high school formal is portrayed as a horror not just for the protagonists but for various other characters too.

But it's not the case.

"I had quite an easy time of it," he says, laughing.

"I liked it."

The high school formal, however, provided a perfect setting for the "jetblack comedy".

"The rites of passage imbibed a natural suspense," Sean says.

"It's like a wedding."

"There's so much natural pressure for it to be perfect, so it magnifies the heartbreak of being turned down."

The movie is quite risque, with sex scenes, and themes of suggested suicide and incest, but Sean didn't have any trouble getting it past the censor.

"I was worried but I had faith the censors would understand the playfulness and tongue-in-cheek aspect," he says.

"It's a real rock n' roll party as opposed to an ordeal of so-called torture porn."

"This is the type of movie I wanted to see as a teenager so I would have hated if they (teenagers) weren't allowed to see it."

It may not be called torture porn but it certainly goes as far as it can with an audience.

Had I not spoken to the director, I would not have perservered, but as it happens, the very part of the movie that was too much and made me want to turn it off, was the very moment where the action changes.

"I've seen it about 50 times and every time you can't really tell how far it's going to go," Sean says.

What is shocking is that Sean's crazy ideas come from research.

"The injecting is quite a common trick of serial killers to stop people screaming through gags and the drilling is a variation of a technique used by Jeffrey Dahmer, serial killer, and that's all I'll say because I don't want to give any more away."

Sean says it was a difficult movie to make given the timeframe and the efforts he had to go to to get funding. 

"We got the amber light from Screen Australia," he says.

"They really liked the film but they wanted to see more."

"They challenged the tone of horror or comedy and wanted more concrete evidence."

So Sean had to create a trailer and director's statement to solidify the movie's concept.

The 27-day shoot he describes as brutal.

"I lost a stone during it and Robin I think got a twitch in her eye," he says. 

It has definitely been worth it though as The Loved Ones, which has been on the festival circuit for just over a year, won the people's choice award at the Midnight Madness competition at the Toronto Film Festival and this year was picked as the best international feature at the Fantastik Film Festival in Sweden.

"That was ahead of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, so it has been critically well received," Sean says.

Audiences seemingly love it.

"People laugh and scream and I saw one guy pump his fists in the air," Sean says.

"It's horror heavy metal."

The movie has opened many doors for Sean who is continuing to write - he's currently working on a "bent home invasion thriller" and he has more movies in train both at home and in the US.

The Loved Ones opened on Thursday (Nov 4) on general release in Australia for a minimum of two weeks and Sean says he is imploring people to go.

"Don't think of it so much as an Australian movie as the best reviewed horror coming out," he says.

As for Australian actress Robin McLeavy, it seems The Loved Ones was too much horror for one lifetime.

"I think really it may be my first and last," she says.

"I loved playing the villain but in terms of my career, I think perhaps it would be good to do a romantic comedy or a period drama."

"I have to shake the typecast." 

When you see the movie you will understand why. 

>> The Loved Ones is now showing at Cairns City Cinemas. Contact Birch Carroll & Coyle at www.eventcinemas.com.au for session times. 

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