Cherry Tree Lane (2010)

Not NW10...

This is an English movie, even if one variation of the artwork clearly shows an American-style house and a white picket fence. It's actually set in North West London, and was written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams (another of his horror outings was darkly comic The Cottage).

That's... better...?

Cherry Tree Lane reminded me of both Funny Games and Eden Lake, and though it's neither as cerebral as the former nor as devastating as the latter, it still manages to be pretty riveting and successfully create tension with "only" a mostly one-room setting and a lot of dialogue. 

It never truly reaches heights of being scary (or at least, it didn't for me) but home invasion is always going to be unsettling... and here the invaders are not dramatic, masked, silent ghouls of unknown motive; they are loud kids with bad attitudes, little empathy, and when it comes to leader Rian (Jumayn Hunter, who actually starred in Eden Lake also) a real streak of cruelty.

The plot couldn't get much simpler; married couple Christine and Mike (Rachael Blake and Tom Butcher) settle down for an evening in - if I had one complaint, it was that the setting up of their dislike for one another was done so painstakingly, we were led to believe something would happen later to explain this, but it doesn't - and while they're eating dinner, a group of teens ring the doorbell and push their way into the house, taking the pair hostage. They say they want to speak to Sebastian, Christine and Mike's son. He's due home within the hour and they're going to wait. They assault Mike to subdue him and tie both up with gaffer tape.

What follows is a slow, stressful climb in unease as time passes, tempers fray and cruelties heighten. Much is done with off-screen violence, using the classic "we'll just have you hear what's happening and imagining far worse than we could ever show/afford to show" to great effect. Screaming and thumping reverberate through the house on a couple of occasions, and it makes up the nastier moments of the film as both the audience and other characters grimace and think about what's happening.

Even though this is a white middle-class couple up against working class kids, it never particularly feels like A Statement On Class. Honestly it feels more straightforward than that. It feels real in the sense that you can imagine Sebastian (whom we wait the entire runtime to see and barely catch a real glimpse of, a touch that I liked) is a mouthy little shit who acts like he's a big deal and got caught saying the wrong thing about the wrong person. I have known people like this - I think we all have. 

As nasty as Cherry Tree Lane gets, it never feels over the top. There are also some stand-out singular moments and shot compositions; watching one of the gang browse the DVD shelf in slow motion, tossing them aside, and the appearance of Christine in the foreground towards the end.

This one was a bit of a grower, but ultimately it left me feeling satisfied that I'd checked it out. I've been feeling pretty uninspired by horror movies of late... or locked into a perpetual scroll of streaming services through fear of wasting time on something shitty. There's so much shit out there! This piqued my interest - the clincher being it runs less than 90mins - and I'm glad it did. Oh, and anyone remember UNKLE? They did the music!

Cherry Tree Lane is currently streaming on Tubi! Honestly, Tubi is making me re-evaluate some life choices. It's free, their catalogue is MASSIVE and even if you have to wade through some crap, they have gems hidden in there too. 

I'd recommend giving this a spin if you want a short, sharp, English take on home invasion.*

*I feel I ought to say, however, CW: sexual assault. It's handled without exploitation, or lingering on the abuse like many movies tend to, but heads up that it happens here. 

Little Deaths (2011)

I've been rolling the British-made Little Deaths around in my head since I watched it a few days ago, wondering what exactly to say about it. If you can't stop thinking about a horror movie - does that make it good? This is an odd one.

Little Deaths, as the name and the artwork suggests, is about sex and death. Two staples in our genre. Here we have three shorts collected together but without any wraparound or connecting threads. I suppose it's a bit like The ABC's of Death, with nothing but a common theme to unite the work.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I feel it works better with larger projects (like the alphabet). For this, when the credits rolled after the third story, it felt undercooked, somehow? I hadn't been keeping track of the time but I had assumed there'd be more than three segments in this anthology.

Anyhow, this trio of tales has elements of sex, death, and also revenge. House & Home (written/directed by Sean Hogan) seems to generally be considered the best of the three - at least judging by the Letterboxd reviews. It concerns an affluent couple whose hobbies include kidnapping and abusing young homeless women. This is a pretty typical "they picked on the wrong girl this time!" story, though the reveal wasn't quite what I was expecting. It's fine enough, but the degradation that comes before the payoff made me feel uneasy and kind of exhausted. 

Mutant Tool (written/directed by Andrew Parkinson) is bonkers but loses a lot of its impact due to its plodding plot. I am a fan of stories about imprisoned and exploited entities, so long as they escape and the captors get their comeuppance. This doesn't exactly happen here, but the ending is satisfactorily dark.

The third and final tale is Bitch (written/directed by Simon Rumley), and it's the one I've thought the most about post-viewing, but I honestly can't decide if I like it or not. 

Here, we witness the day-to-day goings on in an abusive relationship between Claire (Kate Braithwaite) and Pete (Tom Sawyer). Claire is mean and manipulative; she does what she wants and makes Pete feel bad until he goes along with it, treating him like shit in front of his friends as well as in private. They have a kinky "puppy play" situation where Pete wears a mask and leash, crawls around on all fours, and gets pegged by Claire (and sleeps in a kennel in the spare room) but we get the distinct impression that this is more for her enjoyment than his. Ultimately, after she literally fucks one of his friends right in front of him, Pete breaks. He begins to set up a revenge plot that preys upon her deepest fears.

This story is tough to watch, it goes without saying, as abuse is never a fun thing to witness. Sawyer does well in portraying Pete as a sweet bloke trapped in his relationship. He seems constantly agonised and yet the crumbs of affection or interest Claire throws him, plus the hope that things will improve are enough to keep him from leaving. 

Claire is - aptly, given the title - shown almost entirely as a bitch. A horrible, selfish, abusive woman. Her moments of phobia are the only glimpse we get into something deeper or less repulsive about this character. As the villain, I guess this makes sense, but it's a shame to see such broad strokes used. Tackling an abusive relationship from the lesser-represented side of a male survivor is refreshing, but painting Claire so one-dimensional makes it come across more like Rumley just fucking hates women. Her unpleasant fate is not entirely clear, and I hope this was the creator's intent and not an oversight. I won't spoil it, but I have my reasons for disagreeing with a few reads I've seen of what becomes of her.

(aside: well... yikes. I just found out that Rumley also directed the most upsetting segment of the aforementioned The ABC's of Death: P is for Pressure. So honestly, I'm not going to waste too much time wondering what his motivation was here).

I think what got to me most about Bitch was its use of music as it's made clear what Pete is doing. An emotive, uplifting instrumental plays over this montage, stopping with jarring immediacy on a shot of him weeping at what he's done. It's my favourite part of the entirety of Little Deaths, though I'm not sure it's enough to redeem the whole thing...

This is streaming on Shudder at time of writing. It's barely over 1hr30 so if you feel like gulping down three odd little stories, you could do a lot worse??

The Borderlands / Final Prayer (2013)

2018 has been the year I don't quite understand what the fuss is about. See: Revenge, Hereditary (though that wasn't helped by a shitty viewing experience) and now that I've finally seen The Borderlands, this is the latest.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate or even dislike any of these movies. I just didn't seem to get from them what the vocal majority did. I know we're all allowed to have our own opinions, but it's pretty frustrating to be aware of a tidal wave of excitement over a movie that personally left you feeling more like "...that's it?".

So here we are at The Borderlands, or Final Prayer as it's been renamed for the US market. An English found footage flick and feature film directorial debut of Elliot Goldner (who also wrote it).

It follows a team of Vatican investigators as they set up camp in a small town to try and disprove a "miracle" that took place in the local church. The core group is made up of Deacon (Gordon Kennedy - always a pleasure to watch), Gray the tech guy (Robin Hill) and Mark, an uptight priest (Aidan McArdle).

They set up cameras all over the place and wear head-cams, so all of the footage we see is supposedly from these sources.

Which is fine... but the found footage aspect of this film seems more technique than theme, to be honest. There's no narrative book-ending or explanation as to how these cameras were found (a big question, given the denouement) or who edited it all together and/or what the purpose is of us watching it. I guess there doesn't always have to be a Blair Witch Project intro screen for these types of movies, but something to explain some context would be nice?

Nevertheless, we follow the investigations of these men as they scrutinise the church and hang out at their rented cottage. During the day there are weird happenings that Deacon and Mark, the most explicitly religious members of the group, are cynical of and try to explain away. Gray - who took this job purely for the money, and told a white lie about his faith - is way more spooked.

At night, more unsettling things happen, until ultimately the group find themselves performing a ceremony which doesn't exactly go to plan... culminating in a deeply uncomfortable final sequence. 

The main problem I had with this movie was that the gradual climb of the first two acts was too repetitive and slow. Despite definite moments of creepiness, the building of suspense just didn't hit the mark. The payoff here literally comes within the final few moments - rather than the entire film working as a whole in laying the groundwork, with an alarming finale as the cherry on top.

Perhaps on a re-watch I might feel differently?

Something The Borderlands did do successfully was make me miss the English countryside. We are shown a fair amount of it as the team drive around and traipse through fields. It gave me pangs!

I rented this one on Google Play, and I think it's available on Amazon, also. Give it a watch and tell me what I'm missing.

Prevenge (2016)

Prevenge is a beautifully British, blackly comic entry into the pregnancy horror subgenre (of which I am a fan, if you hadn't already guessed).

Written, directed and starring Alice Lowe, shot in just 11 days and all while 8 months pregnant. Can we all just take a moment to say "badass"? 

This title has been on my radar for a little while, but upon learning the above I had to promote it to top of my watchlist. However much I did or didn't end up liking the film, its own conception and birth story was phenomenally impressive!

Lowe stars as Ruth, a recently widowed and heavily pregnant woman who, when we meet her is making her way through a list of people to murder. 

The reason for their deaths is made clearer as the story unfolds, but the main drive behind Ruth's homicidal behaviour is the fact she can hear her unborn baby commanding her to do it.

And I loved that the drama wasn't really in Ruth's grappling with this task - in fact, she doesn't really seem to mind this wet work. This woman is lost in the world after losing her husband; the only thing she has is the baby. So she does as she's told.

❝Baby knows what to do. Baby will tell you what to do.❞

− Ruth's midwife, unknowingly endorsing the deaths of others.

When see Ruth briefly fail to execute these internal instructions, she experiences a violent physical reaction (taking place in an empty subway/underpass, this may well be an homage to Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession, a film I'm desperate to see but haven't yet managed to, although I've read a lot about it!). In another scene, she carries on a deadpan, darkly funny conversation with "Baby", bemoaning the demands children place on parents.

How Ruth is able to continue these murders without being caught is never really discussed, but ultimately she's forced to question the true origins of the voice she's been hearing, with a climax that makes you wonder if she indeed actually cares.

There's a quote that's stayed with me that I think speaks volumes for the character of Ruth. Widowed, adrift and alone in a world full of creeps, arseholes and overly chirpy midwives, she has no connection to anyone now, apart from the baby inside her. 

❝I'm not grieving, I'm gestating... Fucking rage.❞

In a break from her normally dry, disdainful demeanor, she spits these words at a softly-spoken potential victim as he tries to calm her down, in a moment of pure emotion and vulnerability. A "force of nature", like the midwife claimed in one of several scenes with her that are loaded with double meaning.

The fact that most other characters are painted so broadly (pervert, idiot, bitch, etc) was not a problem for me, as I associated with Ruth more than I probably should have. I, too, am eternally annoyed and irritated by the decisions other people make. I really understood her scorn and the way she moved through the world carrying it along with her child.

Prevenge is streaming on Shudder right now, and well worth checking out. Watch that title screen and tell me it didn't make you excited, at least!

The Children (2008)

I'd seen this before but mind-bogglingly never reviewed it. I really enjoy The Children so was excited to see it pop up on (you guessed it) Shudder recently. Definitely getting my money's worth from that service so far!

This is written and directed by Tom Shankland, and is a gutsy little horror story of two families together for the Christmas and the new year holiday. Two sets of parents, four small children and one surly teen all together in a huge house in the English countryside when one by one the kids fall ill to a mysterious virus and become distant, (even more) badly behaved... and homicidal!

This film works well for three reasons:

1. It keeps things simple
2. The violent set-pieces chug along nicely once things turn sour
3. It isn't afraid to boldly cross the line of basing a story on killer kids

The writing is solid - even if no one is shown as especially sympathetic! In fact one set of parents are particularly self-satisfied, boho-bullshit white middle class arseholes; with the obligatory passive-aggressive contest about whose kids are better/smarter, plus quiet competition over who is doing the better job at parenting. This all establishes a restrained tension in the house, even before things go seriously wrong.

The first act also perfectly captures (from my limited experience) the chaotic nature of children of a certain age. How, as adults, it's almost impossible to carry on a conversation without an interruption or scream/whine/cry for attention. The Children takes this very ordinary, real fact and plays with it: the natural naughtiness of kids takes on a sinister turn. Their normal boundary pushing involves more than just refusing to go to bed at a decent hour, it also has them picking up knives and slicing at the adults.

And let's not forget that the dynamic of kiddie killers is scary on a few levels. For one thing, the parents are going to take ages, if ever, to come around to the fact that they need to stop trying to protect, defend or reason with their offspring. They need to strike back against them, and that's often too little too late.

Then there's the repercussions of these horrors in the greater scheme of things: if this condition isn't widespread - which to be fair, in this film we're led to believe it is - anyone who manages to survive murderous children has probably had to take out a few in self defense. This is literally like a zombie movie, but the zombies are adorable little four-year-olds. So to make it out alive you must become one of the ultimate "evil" taboos yourself: a killer of children. It casts an interesting unpleasantness over the entire film, I think.

Shankland uses the young actors wisely, never making them do too much in the way of unnatural, "scary" acting (which can so easily come off as amusingly cheesy) instead choosing close-ups and quick, jarring cuts to make all the gruesome action make sense.

On top of all this, it looks stunning. Blood-splattered snow is rarely a miss, and like Last House On The Left (2009) there are some gorgeous tableau-like establishing shots in there.

It's streaming on Shudder at time of writing, but wherever or however you get your hands on it, I highly recommend that you do.

Tony (2009)

Have you ever gone days without speaking to anyone? Maybe you didn't leave the house for a bit, too. It definitely leaves you feeling slightly disconnected from the world, and aware of everything continuing on around you, regardless. This is basically how our titular main character in Tony exists.

Tony (Peter Ferdinando) has no job, no friends, and his only reliable company is action movies on VHS. He's... an odd chap, so he finds it hard to meet new people; his manner seeming to irritate and/or scare anyone who does ever get particularly close. It's this detachment from people, and the anonymity of London and its boroughs, that makes it easy for Tony to do what he does (kill, keep, and eventually dismember and dispose) and - as far as we know - get away with it.

As someone who spent may years living in London, seeing it displayed in a less than romantic light is really great. The truth of London life, if you're living there as a normal person earning a normal wage, is housing estates, shady looking neighbours and dilapidated buildings. On his many wanders, Tony passes closed down pubs, shop-fronts and unappealing looking blocks of flats (as well as more harmless sights like launderettes and kids playing in the street). 

In amongst the more suburban stuff, we catch glimpses of big London landmarks in the background, like the "Gherkin", Canary Wharf and BT Tower. The city exists all around Tony, the ant hill rumbling along behind it all as he walks, and stalks, and kills. I found this a beautiful and terrifying way of illustrating just how removed from "normal life" an individual can become in a city, with little to no problem (though there is an amusing moment toward the end where Tony is getting grief from the dreaded Television Licence man). This receding back from civilization can work in a loner's favour, as a sort of protection - and this theory is certainly backed up by Tony successfully navigating various situations by either killing his way out or being saved by pure dumb luck.

Tony's kills do become more desperate rather than opportunistic toward the end of the film though, which makes us wonder how much longer he has before someone finally puts two and two together. That said, he's such an invisible presence as he moves through the world, it's also possible that he could continue for years to come. How many killers are operating at any one time in any city? How many have been caught only through fluke or because they wanted to be? Here, Tony does not seem anywhere close to remorseful about what he's doing (he commits murder with a demeanor of pure detached matter-of-factness) so his end will likely come about through being caught, or perhaps killed himself by an underestimated victim.

To make Tony's story even more uncomfortable, Gerard Johnson (who wrote and directed) gives us multiple instances in the film where you kind of feel bad for the guy?! For the most part he's treated like shit if he's noticed at all, and this frustration and sense of further being removed from "normal" people undoubtedly fuels his urge to kill.

The first time we see him he's trying to make small talk to an uninterested DVD seller on the street, and his earnestness and complete inability to read social cues is on full display (see also: watching the arguing couple in the pub). I think this is meant to show him as someone not inherently "evil", it's just that he wants to be part of something... to make a connection, but he lacks the skills to do so successfully. If this is reminding you a little of a serial killer named Dahmer, then yes, there are definite parallels. I'll let you see for yourself to discover just how far those similarities go.

My one gripe about this film is the renaming to Tony: London Serial Killer for certain markets. It's cringe-worthy in its obviousness, and way too on-the-nose for a film so quiet and mundane. "Tony" is one word, one short word, and not even a particularly interesting name... its normality suits the unembellished horror much better.

See, the beauty of Tony is its simplicity. User comments I read (don't ask me why, it's always a mistake isn't it) complained that it was "boring", and "nothing happens". And that's pretty close to being true. If you're the kind of horror fan who needs something to jump or shriek or otherwise spike your blood pressure every few minutes, then this is not going to be an enjoyable movie experience. However if, like me, you love a slow, almost ordinary-feeling film punctuated by violence, Tony is definitely worth checking out.

Streaming on Shudder (I'm doing a 30 day free trial) at time of writing.

The Facility (2012)

Deliberately made this large so you can see the hands, middle left.

Apparently based on a true story (obviously sexed up into horror fare) The Facility deals with a clinical trial gone horribly wrong.

Seven people accept £2000 - payable on completion, natch - to spend two weeks together, being administered a drug called "Pro9" and observed of its side effects. Problems arise on the first night, however, when one of the group starts behaving violently. It's the dickhead estate agent though, so we don't shed any tears.

When the meek hypochondriac wanders off and returns covered in blood, things start to get a little more intense.

The reactions to the drug are kind of like the rage virus in 28 Days Later, but way less scary and significantly less interesting.

One-location horror films with a set group of people usually really float my boat, but this one was disappointing. It burned too slowly in the beginning and even when the action and gore kicked in, it was already too far gone into snoozeville to redeem itself.

It's kind of laughably presented as fact, too, with sombre black title cards on the intro and outro to the movie.

But basically this film amounts to watching a group of people in surgical scrubs shout at one another until one of them turns red and starts punching things.

If all this wasn't bad enough, a huge amount of points have to be deducted for the sheer fact that the only "infected" ragey person to inexplicably rip off all their clothes and run around naked, was the young blonde girl.

This film should be sent to the isolation ward.

🍺 For this film I was sipping on... 🍺

Pumpkin UFO by Harpoon This might be my favourite so far of the pumpkin beers I've tried with a more moderate alcohol content. It's got the spice flavour as you'd expect but I feel like there's also a little more sweetness too? The pumpkin on the label is also super cute. I'd give it 3/5.