Sitges 2026 Review: KICK ON, Aussie Survival Thriller Asks, Et Tu, Brute?

Colourful, entertaining, and exuberantly violent, Nick Kozakis’s debut feature makes the most of the geography and the opportunities of its single location to squeeze maximum tension and maximum gore out of its ultra-lean scenario.

After running out of coke and molly on their night of hard partying, Eden (Markella Kavenagh) and her friends decide to keep the night going, or "kick on," in Melbourne parlance, by scoring a fresh round of drugs from a local Russian drug lord.

They do, sort of, suspect what they are getting into, but at 3am and heavily under the influence, the best decisions are generally avoided. Thus, they come into the orbit of Ray (Nikolai Nikolaeff), the son of said drug lord, who has a swanky penthouse on top of a spectacularly dilapidated tenement building, the kind of 'demilitarized zone highrise' featured in something like The Raid or Attack On Paradise. Indeed, Kick On is a siege thriller, only one at a much smaller scale. This requires Kozakis and his production team to get a bit more creative. 

That creativity is Ray. A charming, magnanimous, and unpredictable ball of party boy energy, who has daddy issues and a pathological need to show off. His pad is painted bright red, adorned with faux-Roman columns with a 'statement piece' of a massive painting of Caesar’s betrayal at the senate in 44 BCE by his own senators. There are a variety weapons mounted on the walls. This is, of course, the ripest of scenarios, with foreshadowing and set-up getting out of the way when it needs to, but also providing some extra glue (and goo) when it has to.

Ray unintentionally, in his own zeal and excitement, holds Eden and her friends hostage. The root word for hostage is host, after all. And Ray is desperately trying to be a good host. Even if the effect is scaring the pants off his suburbanite guests. Every time Eden and her friends appear unwilling to party harder, or offer a socially acceptable off-ramp for them to take their drugs and go, Ray produces a bronze coin to flip. Heads says they try whatever designer drugs he has on offer and rock out to Slavic electronic dance music, tails they can go on their merry way. One suspects the coin has heads on both sides.

Nikolai Nikolaeff essays Ray with a conspiratorial smile and pick-me enthusiasm. He offers more depth, charm (with a subtle the pathetic) into this kind of villain making Ray kind of overshadow the ostensible heroine of the film, Eden. In short he is a hoot to watch, if only to see what he will do next. 

Things go sideways, very far sideways, when Eden spots an opportunity to steal a bit of cash. This decision sets off a firestorm of shotguns, axes, broken glass and bottle-capped’ brass knuckles between her desperate pals, now high on adrenaline and fear, and Ray’s in house goons. Previously disengaged, and playing video games and in the background, at such point, they step up to be surprisingly rounded characters (among the ensuing carnage) by way of their decisions and actions going forward; not simply grist for the mill.

Loyalty tests abound.

Kick On is gleefully nihilistic and gory as hell, while also preserving a clear sense of who is where in the apartment, who is on the way, the stakes involved, and the promise of escalation on the horizon. It is a tight little picture that is only slightly undermined by an extraneous subplot of Eden’s sister dying of cancer. Sure, this provides a motivation for Eden’s reckless, inciting act (the money could pay for an expensive experimental treatment) but one might think such a punkish, Oz-ploitation adjacent picture might eschew this kind of sentimental treacle, and leave it to the audience to suss out why Eden might risk sacrificing her friends for a bit of extra cash.

Et tu, Brute?

No matter, Kick On, has it where it counts in the practical effects, the stylish presentation, and an innate respect for clarity and space, both physical, and temporal. Nothing ever good happens at 4am, and it is a long, tense, and at times even surreal, 90 minutes before the dawn. 

The film enjoys its Spanish Premiere at the Sitges Film Festival. Visit the festival's official site for more information.