No.307 : White Chamber (2018)

White Chamber at the IMDb

Britain is in chaos and nationalism is on the rise! No, it’s not a documentary but a film set sometime “Soon”. The film starts with some ponderous narration with a chap waving a flag on top of Glastonbury Tor. There has been a civil war with a totalitarian government squaring up against a rebellion led by the UK Liberation army.

We then cut to a bright white box and realise that the budget has been spent on that big flag the bloke was waving. A woman wakes up in said box and starts conversing with a distorted voice - ‘where am I?’ ‘who are you?’ ‘can I get my money back?’. After some cruel treatment via the box’s handy hot and cold floor, the true horror slowly dawns on us - will the whole film just be a woman yelling at a wall?

Happily not, after a while a face appears in the wall and it’s that bloke in the black robes off the ‘Mummy’ films. The woman claims to be a new start called Ruth but our man keeps pressing for more details about the operation and her role in the shady experiments he knows that goes on there.

Eventually the chamber opens up and another compartment is revealed to contain a woman with a pretty bad chemical peel. The two fight and Ruth gives her the finger so to speak. We then dissolve to a ‘5 Day’s earlier’ caption and we realise it’s our old favourite, the non-linear narrative.

We meet our woman greeting a new recruit called Ruth - blatant identity theft right there! The man behind the voice (or at least someone who looks like him) is now in the chamber and our woman is the head scientist. It turns out interrogation isn’t their goal but to test new amphetamines that can enhance the abilities of soldiers. We get a bit more back story from an old bloke who looks like Bill Nighy and her off the coffee adverts from the 80’s.

Who will triumph in this battle of wits? Who are ‘the good guys’? and can I have my 90 minutes back please?

This was an OK film but it’s limited scope and in your face politics had me against it from near the start. The main female character played by Shauna Macdonald wasn’t likeable at all, even in the opening section where we were meant to be on her side. Later, when she was revealed to be the evil scientist, albeit one with some heartache, I still wasn’t convinced ,and she was more irritating than scary or despicable.

Coffee woman and the new start didn’t have a lot to do with the later failing to convince in her Road to Damascus type conversion. The guy off the Mummy films was OK but a bit preachy and overly manic when hepped up on goofballs.

The politics were terribly in your face - literally, with one scene having the character telling you how crappy the country is straight to camera, before cutting to another for a reaction shot. Subtle this was not.

To be fair the film did manage to keep my interest, but given we knew after 20 minutes that the roles would be reversed the tension gained was allowed to dissipate. The film did look cheap with most of the action happening in some corridors. It looked like they had broken into an office block for the shoot but couldn’t access the rooms, only the stairs and landings. In places it was almost like a film school project with ropey dialogue delivered in a flat, unbelievable manner by unconvincing actors.

It’s better than being locked in a white box - but only just.

Best Bit : Finger Buffet  ‘W’ Rating : 11/23

No.248 : We Are Monster (2014)

We Are Monster at the IMDb

Uplifting family fun now as we enjoy a knockabout British romp set in a young offenders institution. Actually, scratch that - this is one of the nastiest and most depressing films you’ll ever see. It could be claimed to be a drama documentary profiling a shocking case of murder and institutional ineptitude but it’s just a horrible watch that offers nothing in the way or answers or, God forbid, entertainment.

The film opens at its inevitable conclusion with a blood soaked youth being bundled out of his cell as he stands over his bloodied victim. There is no explanation but we are then shuttled back a few weeks so that we can understand how we got here. To be honest they could have covered the ground in two minutes - mental racist kills Asian cell mate. Still if they’d went that way we wouldn’t have had the full 90 minutes of nihilistic fun and racial slurs.

The subject of the film, which is ‘based on a true story’, is Robert a self tattooed racist who has been in the system for years. He is in for threatening a call centre worker and seems off balance from the start. Before long he starts talking with himself - literally as his nasty persona takes form as himself whom only he can see. This leads to lots of scene where he is egging himself on to greater and greater feats of nastiness whilst the P.O.V.s of other prisoners show him to be talking to an empty seat.

The prison officers, who include Clem Fandango, aren’t much use and aren’t shy of a bit of casual racism themselves. They put Robert in a cell with Asian youth Zahid who is in for stealing razor blades - before long he’s going to wish he went with a beard! Zahid tried to be friendly but backs off when Robert gets more aggressive and introverted. Zahid is due to be released in a few days so resolves to keep his head down.

Robert meanwhile starts to delve into his past and tries to rationalise his situation. The film does the same with an abusive childhood and faults in the system the reason for Robert’s mental state. Some of these scenes were well done with his brown underpants wearing father beating him up as a child for wetting the bed. The film isn’t too apologist for Robert’s ultimate act but you do get the sense that they are showing him to be a victim too.

As the film moves towards its inevitable climax we are left to wonder what could have been done differently and what have we learned. Should we have watched that Adam Sandler comedy instead? Maybe!

This is an impossible film to like with its endless racist rants and unsubtle swipes at authority and society. They was an effort to explain Robert’s actions but that veered away from his own responsibility and while he was broken by the system he’s still a murdering scumbag with no redeeming features.

The film was hung on the central performance of Leeshon Alexander as Robert and he did OK with a difficult dual role. As ‘normal’ Robert he was too starey and manic and as his alter ego he was annoying and shouty. He did have difficult material to work with though, as he was spouting a lot of garbage that even the KKK would see as a tad extreme.

The closing captions of the film lay all the blame at the authorities’ door, and of course there were shortcomings, but to make apologies for the central scumbag didn’t sit right and you have to wonder about the point of the whole enterprise. The film’s vibe was hateful throughout and all I came away with was a grubby feeling for having watched the whole grim spectacle.

Best Bit - No I can’t hear you Clem Fandango
‘W’ Rating - 8/23

No.243 : World War Dead : The Rise of the Fallen (2015)

World War Dead : The Rise of the Fallen at the IMDb

Towards the end of this British ‘found footage’ horror one of the soon to be scoffed characters does an earnest piece to camera. “This is the craziest shit I’ve ever experienced” he says. Well, he’s half right - it certainly was shit!

Of course, with a title like this one you can’t expect much and it certainly delivers nothing at all, except for a series of predictable jerky encounters with some out of focus and anachronistic solder zombies.

Still I’m getting ahead of myself - let’s do the plot - that should cover a sentence! The film opens with some captions and stock footage about the Battle of the Somme - neat way to pad the already skinny 75 minute run time. We learn that a distinguished documentary film maker (who seemingly works out of a Transit van with a bunch of amateurs) has gone missing and what follows is cut from footage that was later found. So far so very predictable.

The characters have none to speak of and they all bitch about each other and argue pointlessly to either build up the tension or to disguise the fact that there is no script and that the zombie extras have only been paid for 20 minutes. The shoot is interrupted when mysterious figures appear in the background and a ‘French’ passer-by advises that it is ‘tres dangerous’ to be in the area.

There are plenty of false starts before the expert starts pulling on a chain that was next to a lake. This reveals a skeleton which belongs to a soldier from an African regiment who practiced bringing the dead back to life. He has a handy amulet in his stomach which the expert pockets, oblivious to its deadly powers! In no time flat the crew is besieged by resurrected soldiers from the Somme battlefield who strangely seem to be wearing World War 2 uniforms. They also have a taste for flesh which is unexplained apart from that’s what zombies do, I guess.

Some of the cast get chomped and another lot find an abandoned, but curiously well stocked, bunker and plot their salvation. Some handy 100 year old dynamite may help their fight and if they can rebury the skeleton (which wasn’t buried in the first place), maybe the dead will rest again. Can’t fault logic like that!

This was a shocker of a film and in no way is that a compliment. For starters I’ll bet the whole thing was filmed in England with one stuck on number plate and a dreadful ‘local’ the only nods to the actual location of the Somme battlefield. To be fair there is no way rubbish like this would get permission to film there, and if that’s the case you have to wonder about the inclusion of old footage of real and dead soldiers from the time. Regular readers will know PC isn’t my thing but real dead soldiers being used to set the scene for this tosh was plain disrespectful.

The acting was ghastly, as was the script which I don’t doubt was improvised throughout. The jerky cameras were vomit inducing and the added crackles and interference offered only annoyance, not authenticity. Very little was done in the was of explaining the zombies’ motivation or the fact that after 100 years the only decay they exhibited was that pasty face make up that students do at Halloween.

The only scares were of the usual ‘jump out’ variety allied to a screech on the soundtrack which wore thin the first time, never mind the fifth.

OK it’s hokey garbage with no pretense at great art or even competent movie making, but this was an embarrassment to all concerned not to mention an affront to common decency in general.

Best Bit - Head gets pulled off
‘W’ Rating 3/23

No.238 : When the Lights Went Out (2012)

When the Lights Went Out at the IMDb

Paranormal activity in 1970’s Yorkshire now in this British frightener.

The film opens with  a husband and wife traveling to their new home with their teenage daughter. It’s 1974 and times are tough, although some affluent neighbours do have satellite dishes! The family is struggling financially but hope to have a fresh start in their new council semi.

Unfortunately for them they have moved into a home occupied by a cliché obsessed poltergeist who goes through the usual routine of slamming doors and moving stuff about. The 13 year old daughter is more attuned to goings on and soon sees a spooky figure in the TV - maybe it was ‘Top of the Pops’? The initially skeptical family soon start to believe when they each have an encounter with the spirit, although to be fair it does do a good job of stripping wall paper.

The torn faced daughter confides in her lovely teacher Martin Compston who does some research and takes the class to an old monastery where the girl has a vision of a monk being hanged. There is also a fortunate museum exhibition with lax security which leads the girl to believe her poltergeist pal is the ghost of a 13 year old landowner’s daughter who was killed by a mad monk. She steals the girl’s pendant from the museum as it’s bound to come in handy or she can swap it for some Spangles at the very least.

The case starts to get some coverage from the press and soon the marriage is under stress due to all the nocturnal fumblings that take place when the husband is away - that old excuse again! As the frequency and potency of the attacks increase can a seance or even the Catholic church save the day?

This was an OK, by the numbers, low budget haunted house tale. It was no ‘The House that Bled to Death’ but it went pretty much as you’d expect and had a decent finale that looks like it soaked up 95% of the budget.

The 1970’s were fairly realised but it was a mistake to throw in lots of ‘funny’ lines about avocado bath suites and ugly curtains just so that we in the present day can have a cheap snigger. It was incongruous and took you straight out of any sense of buying into the film’s reality. There were also a plethora of 70’s toys scattered about for the nostalgia effect only including a fully loaded Buckaroo that went off in the night - who ever left their Buckaroo piled high overnight?!

The plot was slight and although less than 90 minutes the film needed some padding to make it to feature length. The solving of the mystery was somewhat pat and the good versus evil battle at the end hadn’t been fully fleshed out for it to make sense. The special effects were quite good although a bit off kilter compared to the rest of the film - we went from muddy 70’s sepia to Industrial Light and Magic for the last couple of minutes.

All in all this was a decent effort but if they wanted something really scare from the 1970’s they should just have recreated the Radio 1 road show.

Best Bit : Uh-oh Slinky attack!
‘W’ Scot 13/23

No.237 : What We Did On Our Holiday (2014)

What We Did On Our Holiday at the IMDb

 If you like films about bickering couples (and who doesn’t?) this may well be the one for you.

Tenth Doctor David Tennant takes his family on a journey through time and space - well, it happens over a couple of days and they go to Scotland - where marital and family differences are all played out around the celebrations of his father’s (Billy Connolly’s) birthday.

Tennant is married to Rosamund Pike and rather than thank the Good Lord he spends all his time fighting with her - to be fair e never really got over Billie Piper. The pair live in London with their three stage school kids and have a daunting trip ahead of them to the Scottish Highlands where his brother (Ben Miller) and father live.

Ben is a total asshole who bullies his son and values his money over everything else. Bet he learns a lesson soon! He also has the worst Scottish accent you can imagine and it must have been that Alexander Armstrong was busy that weekend.

The family gather and we start to learn some home truths including some infidelity and that Billy has cancer. The innocent kids give away a lot of the family secrets to which wise old Billy dispenses increasingly annoying homilies, as he tries to protect them from the fractious family difficulties.

As the day of the day of the big birthaday party arrives an event occurs that leads all of the family to reevaluate their values and relationships. Yes, I’m afraid it’s that dull!

This was a largely inoffensive film but one that became increasingly annoying as it progressed. The characters were all thinly drawn and I didn’t really care why they were bickering never mind hope that they could become reconciled. The kids all did their best but there were a lot of fluffed lines and the wisdom of their innocence quickly became a real niggle.

The pivotal scene after an hour was as mawkish as it was unlikely - some of the impromptu building work carried out would have stumped Brunel!

It was a good cast with a lot of familiar faces popping up for five minutes but they were largely underused with shouting and yelling taking centre stage over any attempts at wit or charm.

The film was written and directed by Guy Jenkin and Andy Hamilton of ‘Drop the Dead Donkey’ fame and it’s a shame they produced such an anodyne and forgetful comedy rather than take a few chances, as we’d expect from them. It’s definitely not one to hate but just a twee and forgettable bit of fluff with nothing really to say and no laughs offered either.

Best Bit : No Osprey? Let’s paint one on the film!
‘W’ Rating 10/23

No.235 : Wild Target (2010)

Wild Target at the IMDb

Some people say British comedies are all the same predictable rubbish and feature the same old faces. Well if it’s ‘Wild Target’ they are commenting upon it’d be hard to argue with them!

Bill Nighy plays a hit man with mother and emotional issues. He’s had a long and successful career as an assassin, which he puts down to meticulous planning and not getting emotionally involved. We can see he’s hurting as he learns French from a tape and has dinner on his own, but surely nothing can break his granite like façade?

Meanwhile free spirited Emily Blunt is organising an art scam. She has hooked poor sucker Rory Kinnear to paint her an exact copy of an old master which she will then sell to Rupert Everett having shown him the original (Rory works at the National Gallery) before switching to the fake. The plan goes well and she makes £900k but the scheme falls apart when the paint is discovered to still be wet - art forgery mistake number one, you’d think!

Anyway Rupert hires Bill to kill Emily and after following her about town for a day Bill starts to take a shine to the thieving harlot. He is however about to shoot her when a rival hit man, Rab C Nesbitt, shows up and Bill has to decide to take the contract or the girl. Things are further complicated when Ron Weasley shows up and Bill, Ron and Emily have to escape together.

The remainder of the film is more or less padding as the three unlikely bedfellows get to know each other and themselves before evil hit man, Tim from the Office, tracks them down for a final showdown.

I don’t think I cracked a smile once during this alleged comedy. I normally quite like Bill Nighy but his character here was such a cliché it was hard to care. The meticulous hit man undone by a target plot is a lot older than Bill and frankly he is getting on a bit for his romance with Emily to be believable or even seemly. She is meant to come across as a free spirited rock chick but only manages ‘shallow thieving bint who gets lots of folk killed’.

Ron’s part is pretty superfluous and although he’s meant to be the son Bill never had he’s more like the guy who can’t act who’ll bring in the Harry Potter audience. Things should have been improved by adding Tim from ‘The Office’ to the mix but he lacked the menace his character was supposed to exclude and his comedy dentures were a mistake.

The climax, which has the most blatant foreshadowing I can remember (“be careful with that gun it explodes when fired”), was terrible but at least welcome as it signalled the film was nearly done.

I wasn’t bothered by the film’s shaky moral compass, only by it’s dearth of laughs and predictable plot.

Best Bit : Bill listens to his radio set
‘W’ Score : 9/23

No.225 - We Are the Freaks (2013)

We Are The Freaks at the IMDb

You get a lot of unheard of British films showing up on Netflix - it’s almost like they found a big skip of them behind a closed down Blockbuster store. I’ve watched a few and they are invariably rubbish - check out ‘Full English Breakfast’ if you want a prime example. Most of these films concern what Alan Partridge would term ‘Bad Slags’ with gangsters and football hooligans taking centre stage at a performance no one is watching. Except me.

‘We Are the Freaks’ doesn’t bode well with its poster showing a gaggle of yoof in front of the Union flag which has largely been hijacked by those promoting racism and intolerance. On that front it surprised me - there was no real violence and not much swearing - unfortunately there wasn’t much else either.

The film opens with Jamie Blackley doing narration whilst his character Jack walks down the street. You quickly see that the film will be somewhat subversive when he says he hates voice-overs and stock footage just as they show stock footage of Margaret Thatcher. Bit of politics and self deprecation there! He also draws a gun and shoots a Goth but it’s alright he’s only fantasising. He’s a frustrated wannabe writer stuck in a dead end job and his flights of fancy take him out of his dull existence.

He has similarly disenfranchised friends in the shape of Chunks, who has stolen his brother's Porsche, and Parsons who is in a relationship with the funny looking secretary off ‘Life’s Too Short’. The lads plan a big night out and, after scoring some drugs from Tyres out of ‘Spaced’, they crash a posh party hosted by the parents of Jack’s fantasy love who we know is too good for him as she’s always playing musical instruments when we see her - classy, you understand.

As you’d expect the night doesn’t go to plan with the three lads separating to have their own adventure. There are all pretty low key with one stealing a flag, one busting his banjo string whist having pretty sedate sex and the third wondering if he should open an envelope - it’s certainly not from the Academy Awards Committee I can tell you!

This is an obviously low budget affair so you can forgive some of its shortcomings, but not enough happens to justify even its skinny 74 minutes run time. The first ten minutes were promising but it soon descended into a predictable ‘one wild night’ story that wasn’t particularly wild or memorable. No one had a story arc to speak of and it came across as just a bunch or random stuff that happened and that’s it.

The only memorable scene was Tyres taking down some neds in a kebab shop and possibly Warwick Davis’ secretary riding a young man to destruction with her party frock on. The two leads have been on ‘Skins’ which I’m not familiar with but at least they had the man who liked strawberry jam out of ‘Sex Lives of the Potato Men’ to keep me somewhat amused.

Overall this looked like a film school project bolstered by a couple of familiar faces from the D list. It wasn’t terrible but it also had nothing whatsoever to recommend it.

Best Bit : Kebab Shop Kafuffle  ‘W’ Rating 9/23