All mashed up? songs, music and allusionism in the loved ones (2009)

This article considers Australian director Sean Byrne’s 2009 horror/comedy feature film The Loved Ones with particular regard to its uses of allusionism within a popular genre context.1 Within this focus, the article explores the various musical components of the soundtrack (including critical use of specific songs), the creative template determined by the director and the creative input and decision making of various members of the production team. In this manner, the article profiles the film’s audio-visual text, the perceptions and motivations of the production team and considers how these relate to the film’s reception and box-office performance.