The Cost

Intent on dispensing their own brutal form of justice, two ordinary men abduct a felon who committed a horrific crime many years before.

  • Matthew Holmes
    Director
    Twin Rivers, The Legend of Ben Hall
  • Matthew Holmes
    Writer
    Twin Rivers, The Legend of Ben Hall
  • Gregory Moss
    Writer
  • Russell Cunningham
    Producer
    The Legend of Ben Hall
  • Blake Northfield
    Producer
    Streamline, Escape & Evasion
  • Jordan Fraser-Trumble
    Key Cast
    "David"
    The Legend of Ben Hall, West of Sunshine
  • Damon Hunter
    Key Cast
    "Aaron"
    The Party Bus
  • Kevin Dee
    Key Cast
    "Troy"
    The Westermark Effect, Out of Order
  • Nicole Pastor
    Key Cast
    "Stephanie"
    Ruby's Choice
  • Clayton Watson
    Key Cast
    "Brian"
    The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Genres:
    Drama, Thriller
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 48 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    September 30, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    1,500,000 AUD
  • Country of Origin:
    Australia
  • Country of Filming:
    Australia
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2.35:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Monsterfest
    Melbourne
    Australia
    November 19, 2022
    Australia Premiere
Distribution Information
  • Archstone Entertainment
    Sales Agent
    Country: United States
    Rights: All Rights
  • High Fliers Films
    Distributor
    Country: United Kingdom
    Rights: All Rights
  • Electric Films
    Distributor
    Country: United States
    Rights: All Rights
  • MadMan Entertainment
    Distributor
    Country: Australia
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Matthew Holmes

Matthew Holmes is a multi award-winning Australian director, writer and producer who started his career in 1995 a stop-motion animator, sculptor and story-board artist working on hundreds of TVCs and award-winning short films at Adelaide's prestigious animation company Anifex Pty Ltd.

His self-financed feature debut 'Twin Rivers' was completed in 2007, finding a home on Foxtel.

His sophomore feature 'The Legend of Ben Hall' was release in 2016, which started as a hugely successful crowd-funded short before launching into production as a feature, with fellow Australian director Greg Mclean (Wolf Creek, Jungle) joining as Executive Producer. The film has since garnered multiple international awards and has been released in 22 countries, earning critical & audience praise for his engaging characters and highly authentic recreation of the history.

Matthew's third independent feature film 'The Cost' was completed in late-2022, with his fourth feature 'Fear Below' now in post-production.

He is now a freelance director residing in Melbourne, Victoria. Matthew has multiple features in various stages of development including the crime thriller 'Impasse', the psychological horror 'BlackJack', the creature-feature 'Territorial', a bold re-imagining of the Greek mythology tale 'Jason and the Argonauts' and a 4-season original series titled 'The Bushrangers'.

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Director Statement

For me, 'The Cost' was a way to explore humanity's instinctual reaction to meet violence with more violence and ask the age-old question - what is justice? Where is the moral line - and what happens when one crosses it? In movies, revenge is mostly depicted as a positive or a cathartic act; I wanted to deliver a film that explored the true emotional and mental consequences of vigilante justice, one that will have the audience questioning their own moral stance on this issue long after the credits roll.