Film

Three Identical Strangers

 

08/12/18

Three Identical Strangers is a disturbing film, documenting the extraordinary lives of three young men, who – at the age of nineteen – discovered they were triplets, separated at birth.

The initial, heartwarming version of their tale is rather well-documented: in 1980, when they first found one another, Bobby, Eddy and David were big news. They gave countless TV interviews, and embraced their notoriety, strutting their stuff around New York, making the most of their newfound celebrity. They even scored themselves a brief appearance in Madonna’s first movie, Desperately Seeking Susan, and seemed to revel in each other’s company.

But there’s a darker side to their story and it’s not comfortable to watch. Because the boys and their adoptive parents were never told that they were triplets; the details of their lives were hidden from them. Why? The adoption agency Louise Wise Services contravened ethical guidelines by withholding this information; what was their motivation?

Science, it seems; or the pursuit of knowledge.

The boys were born in 1961, and nature/nurture was a hot topic. What, Dr Peter Neubauer wondered, could be learned if identical siblings were brought up in different socio-economic circumstances, or parented in contrasting ways? And how better to find out than to collude with an adoption agency, and carefully allocate twins to pre-selected families? Under the guise of monitoring the progress of adopted kids, the similarities and differences in their progress could be observed. Of course he knew he was on shaky moral ground (otherwise, he would have been more open about his plans); nevertheless, the experiment went on. He must have been delighted when the triplets were born.

After an initial third focusing on the brothers’ fairytale discovery, the film goes on to focus on the fallout, the impact on the boys and the men that they became. And it’s devastating really, the effect of Dr Neubauer’s god-complex, meddling with people’s lives to further his own interests.

The doctor himself is dead now, but his assistants’ recollections are chilling, not least because they seem so unapologetic, so unabashed about the nature of their work. The boys all went to decent families; they can’t see the damage they have wrought.

In the main, this is a compelling documentary, dispassionately told, allowing people and events to speak for themselves. I’m a little uncomfortable about the way Eddy’s adoptive father, Mr Galland,  is presented, the blame for his son’s problems laid squarely at his door. He was a strict, unemotional parent, for sure, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t love his son, didn’t try his best to do right by him. Director Tim Wardle’s partiality is on show here: he much prefers the way that David’s father, Mr Kellman, brought him up.

Still, that’s my only complaint. Otherwise, this is a shocking story, rightly – if tardily – exposed to scrutiny. Bravo to those who have worked to tell the tale; shame on those who sought to cover it up.

And good luck to the boys – and to the other twins affected by this twisted social research project, some of whom do not yet know that they have a double somewhere out there in the world.

4.4 stars

Susan Singfield

Anna and the Apocalypse

07/12/18

Last summer, wandering around my home city in the vicinity of the Usher Hall, I came across something entirely unexpected. A strange crowd had collected in front of the building – not the usual ticket-bearing punters, queuing to see the latest concert, but a motley assortment of blood-spattered zombies, growling at me in a most disconcerting manner, while more soberly attired actors handed out inflatable candy canes.

What was it all in aid of, I wondered? One young woman informed me that they were starring in an upcoming film called Anna and the Apocalypse, a movie shot in and around Glasgow, and they were celebrating the fact that they’d just signed a distribution deal with ‘a major player.’ Their energy and enthusiasm was infectious. I took the opportunity to snap a selfie with one of the undead and went on my way.

Now, a little over six months later, the film is in the cinemas and, given my unusual introduction to it, I find myself wanting to like it a little more than I actually do. It’s by no means terrible, you understand, but this spirited mash-up of Shaun of the Dead, High School Musical and er… White Christmas, has the ghost of those rather better films hanging over it and, try as I might, I can’t quite dispel them.

The eponymous Anna (Ella Hunt) is a self-assured teenager who feels somewhat constrained by the sleepy town of Little Haven, where she lives with her father, Tony (Mark Benton). Her mother has recently shuffled off the mortal coil and Anna is considering taking a year out before starting uni, so she can travel and see a bit more of the world. Meanwhile, she interacts with her best buddy, John (Malcolm Cumming), works part time down the local bowling alley and puts up with the caustic remarks of the snide school head, Mr Savage (Paul Kaye). And then, on the night of the high school Christmas concert, a zombie epidemic breaks out…

Of course, given the subject matter, this was always going to be compared with Shaun, but it’s particularly damning when Anna’s best scene is almost a rerun of the one where Simon Pegg’s character pays a visit to the corner shop and, in the midst of total devastation, fails to notice that anything is amiss. Still, there’s plenty to like here, despite that. The songs, by Roddy Hart and Tommy Reilly are catchy; Hunt (who was absolutely the best thing about The More You Ignore Me) clearly has a big cinematic future ahead of her; and this is sprightly and funny enough to keep a late-night crowd happy.

Who knows, maybe in years to come that festive theme might turn this into a cult Christmas hit – and that’s clearly the filmmakers’ intention, as they pile on the tinsel and mistletoe a little too relentlessly for comfort. I’d also like to see a few genuine scares thrown into the mixture. Though this is as bloody and visceral as the genre demands, it never really unnerves me. And, for good measure, a film shot in Scotland and funded by the Scottish Arts Council, might have worked better if there’d been a few more Scottish actors (and accents) in the mix.

Though… and I could be way off beam here… is that (an uncredited) David Tenant briefly acting the role of one of the undead?

Anyhow, Anna and the Apocalypse is a fun film and, those fancying a giggle could do a lot worse than this.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney

They Shall Not Grow Old

 

THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD film still

27/11/18

I’ve come to this one rather late in the day, partly because of other commitments and partly because I really wanted to wait until I had the opportunity to see it on a cinema screen. I’m glad I waited.

Peter Jackson’s First World War documentary is, of course, a considerable technical achievement, featuring state-of-the-art colourisation processes – but it’s also a powerful evocation of a brutal military campaign. Using archive footage from the Imperial War Museum (much of it getting its first public airing here), They Shall Not Grow Old is primarily the chronological story of the British ‘Tommy,’ following his tortuous path from enlistment to armistice.

Jackson cannily holds back the film’s trump card for a good twenty minutes or so. The images we are first presented with are in a square framed ratio, those speeded-up monochrome visions that we’re already familiar with, the kind that somehow contrive to demote the Great War to the level of a Charlie Chaplin comedy routine. We watch as ranks of new recruits skitter haphazardly across the screen, marching as though auditioning for Mack Sennett. We see countless numbers of young men answering the call of duty, doing their basic training, boarding troop ships to cross the channel, and still Jackson holds back.

And then there’s a spellbinding change when battalions of troops arrive at the Western Front to prepare for the upcoming conflict. Quite without warning, the pace suddenly slows, the screen floods with naturalistic colour and we hear the sounds of mobilisation – the relentless trudge of boots through mud, the rumble of engines, the whinnying of horses – and off in the distance, the forbidding rumble of explosions, the nagging rattle of gunfire. It’s a chilling transition, one that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. Quite suddenly, one hundred years of history have evaporated in the blink of an eye and I realise I am looking at real people, many of them just teenagers, who turn their mournful, apprehensive faces to the camera as they stumble by, knowing they are almost certainly going to their deaths.

It’s the film’s most unforgettable moment.

Which is not to denigrate the rest of it, not at all. I listen to the accounts of real veterans who went through the ordeal and somehow survived; and I’m shown the inevitable consequences of war: the heaps of dismembered, bloated bodies; the shattered buildings; the splintered trees; the twisted hell of No Man’s Land. And through it all these young men continue to grin for the camera, give it a sly wave, mumble a quick ‘Hello Mum,’ as they pass by. I feel humbled by seeing them and by experiencing just a little of what they had to go through.

How does the rest of that famous stanza go? ‘At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we shall remember them.‘

And we do – now. But back then, when those men returned, no one wanted to acknowledge the truth of what they had been through. And I’m still not sure we’ve learned the lessons that would prevent such a horror from ever happening again.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Overlord

26/11/18

‘War makes monsters of men.’ In Julius Avery’s Overlord, this adage is taken to its logical conclusion as a bunch of evil Nazis, occupying a small village in France, carry out a series of rather nasty experiments on the local population. This canny blend of war movie and 18 certificate body horror is undoubtedly a mash-up, but such beasts are rarely as well handled as this, or as downright entertaining. Indeed, here’s a movie that hits the ground running and goes galumphing gloriously along to its final blood-drenched moments.

Of course, because of the presence of JJ Abrams as executive producer, the film was widely expected to be a fourth instalment in the Cloverfield franchise, but I’m happy to say the C-word is never mentioned here and it’s just as well, since this has its own agenda and fulfils it very effectively.

It’s 1945, the eve of D Day, and we join Private Boyce (Jovan Adepo) in a crowded transport plane, preparing to bale out over German-occupied France. Boyce and his fellow paratroopers have been tasked with an important mission. They are to destroy a church steeple in the aforementioned French village, which the Germans are currently using as a communications centre. The success of Operation Overlord depends on its timely destruction (so no pressure there). But within minutes of the film’s start, the plane is taking on fire and, in a totally immersive and nerve-shredding sequence, all hell breaks loose. Boyce barely escapes with his life.

A little later, approaching the village accompanied by a few other survivors, including hard-bitten veteran, Ford (Wyatt Russell), Boyce encounters Chloe (Mathilde Olivier), a young woman struggling to survive under the predations of the ruthless Nazi Commandant Wafner (Pilou Asbaek). She takes the American soldiers into hiding at her aunt’s house… but what exactly is happening in the compound that houses that all-important church tower? Why are so many prisoners being taken there? And why is Chloe’s aunt making all those strange noises in her room?

The gradual metamorphosis from action film to horror movie is effectively done, pushing the envelope a little further with each new revelation, until our disbelief is well and truly suspended – and the very real horrors of war seem to lend extra gravitas to the fantasy elements of the story. The presence of deadly explosive charges adds an extra layer of suspense to the final furlong. It’s breathless stuff. More squeamish viewers should be warned that there are scenes here that may test their resolve to the limit, but those who fancy a B-Movie plot married to A-Movie production values are going to have a whale of a time with this. I know I did.

That said, anyone scheduled to undergo a medical procedure in the near future might want to give this one a miss. It gets very messy.

4.3 stars

Philip Caveney

Assassination Nation

24/11/18

Salem. Teenage girls. Mass hysteria. And death. Assassination Nation‘s parallels with the witch trials are not subtle. But they are bold and audacious, timely and provocative. This is a fascinating film.

It’s not a retelling of The Crucible, but it riffs on the themes: a society bound by rules so strict that no one really follows them; the chaos that’s unleashed when the underbelly is exposed. And the teenage girls, easy scapegoats for the mob. Why look for someone else to blame when there are sassy, sexy young women strutting about the town, showing off their nubile bodies and their high intellects?

Lily (Odessa Young) is our heroine: an eighteen-year-old with attitude. Her parents are Mr and Mrs Uptight, squarer than a box, but Lily has opinions of her own. She’s smart: when the school principal (Colman Domingo) takes her to task for submitting pornographic drawings for an art assignment, she argues eloquently; these are not mindless ‘shock-the-system’ images, but a considered response to the world she knows. Taken aback, the principal acknowledges she’s right, but asks her to concede: ‘This is high school; it’s not appropriate here.’

And that’s kind of the point of the whole film: that we all collude in pretending reality is something else. We wear our masks and present public selves that are very different from our private selves, and (some of us) outwardly condemn others who are seen to do the very things that we do too. Writer-director Sam Levinson clearly has something to say about this, and he’s not shy about saying it. The utter absurdity of modern American life is mercilessly exposed.

Things begin to fall apart in Salem when an anonymous hacker starts uploading everybody’s secrets: texts and emails, photographic caches, google searches, everything. It’s no longer possible to maintain the illusion that everyone follows the creeds laid out for them, and the fallout is huge. At first it doesn’t seem to matter too much: the mayor is rightly exposed as a hypocrite, standing on a ‘family values’ platform, denying LGBT+ rights, while secretly cross-dressing. But we soon learn that he’s a victim too, that no one can flourish in a world that condemns individuals when they reveal the truth about themselves.

And then, as more people have their private lives revealed, we discover that the mob is hungry for blood. Even the most innocuous photographs are seen as proof of corruption; we’re back in Crucible territory now: if you’re accused, you’re guilty; there’s really no way out. Eventually, inevitably, Lily’s own phone is hacked. She’s been sexting with a married neighbour, so the townsfolk have a lot to say. The baying crowd turns on her and her friends: they are literally out to kill.

This is a vibrant, pulsating movie, that screams its message loudly and proudly – and largely successfully. Oddly, I detest the first fifteen minutes or so, and am actually contemplating walking out of the cinema (something I haven’t done since Heat) but I’m glad I sit it out, because – once that frantic, in-yer-face, split-screen throbbing is over – it all starts to fall into place, and the opening makes sense in context too.

It’s a film for our times, that’s for sure. There are tongue-in-cheek trigger warnings that seem at first to be poking fun at ‘snowflakes’ but turn out to foreshadow scenes that show how relevant these issues really are. There’s a chilling moment where a mob is chanting, ‘Lock him up!’ about an innocent man: no prizes for making the connection here. I said it’s not subtle. But why should it be? Sometimes the most affecting art is created using broad strokes.

I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say the girls become avengers – it’s clear from the posters, after all, but I have some qualms about the way in which weapons are used in this final third. It’s all a bit glamorous, a bit ‘good-guy-with-a-gun’ for my liking. But then, I suppose, the truth is this: in a society as rigid and divided as modern America, the suits who make the rules really had better look out. Because the guns are out there. And those they seek to victimise know how to use them too.

4.3 stars

Susan Singfield

Outlaw King

 

23/11/18

In a move that is happening with increasing regularity, Outlaw King has gone straight to Netflix. When this first started, I imagined it would only be an occasional thing, but now, it seems, the streaming company have their eyes on the Oscars. The inevitable result is that brilliant films like the Coen Brothers’ Ballad of Buster Scruggs have been afforded the same treatment; and Alfonso Cuaron’s upcoming release, the Oscar-tipped Roma, looks certain to follow an identical path. Oh sure, it will have a ‘limited theatrical release,’ but that may only amount to one week in a few cinemas in London in order to qualify for competition. Ultimately, it means that British cinema goers are going to miss out and this worries me. I love cinema and I want to see it supported not sidelined.

Ironically, this powerful action movie, based around the life of Robert the Bruce is yet another film that really deserves to be viewed on the big screen. There’s sumptuous location photography, filmed (in what is becoming the exception rather than the rule) in the places where the story actually happened. The time is clearly right for the subject. Consigned to a supporting role in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, Robert the Bruce is an important figure in Scottish history, and the man chiefly responsible for securing its independence from England.

When we first meet Robert (Chris Pine), he is renewing his fealty to King Edward the First of England (Stephen Dillane), mostly at the insistence of his elderly father, Robert Senior (James Cosmo), who feels he’s seen enough bloodshed for one lifetime and fears the consequences of taking on his country’s occupiers. Robert reluctantly toes the line, paying his exorbitant taxes and even agreeing to marry Edward’s daughter, Elizabeth (Florence Pugh, building on her star making role in Lady Macbeth), a woman he has never even met before. But the capture and murder of Scottish rebel leader, William Wallace, brings about a change of heart in Robert and, against all contrary advice, he takes up his sword and sets about trying to unite Scotland against a common enemy. It’s no easy matter and he has plenty of defeats to overcome before he can make any progress. But as the saying goes, ‘if at first you don’t succeed…’

David Mackenzie makes an assured job of all this, handling the more intimate scenes and the epic battles with equal aplomb. The growing relationship between Robert and Elizabeth is sensitively handled but the film is unflinching when it comes to the visceral – a scene where one character is hung, drawn and quartered is certainly not for the faint-hearted. A climactic cavalry charge is so brilliantly immersive, I find myself wincing at every hack of a claymore, every thrust of a lance. Again, this really needs the scale of a cinema screen to fully bring Barry Ackroyd’s superb cinematography to life – even the biggest of home screens cannot hope to do it justice.

Pine handles the Scots accent convincingly enough and there’s nice supporting work by Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the pugnacious James Douglas, one of Robert’s closest allies. Those hoping for an appearance by the infamous spider of legend will be sadly disappointed, but lovers of stirring action will find plenty to enjoy here.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

21/11/18

One thing is certain: this film will have its fans. Enthusiastic, excited fans, thrilled to be offered further insights into their beloved Potterverse. It’s sure to do well: even the Wednesday evening showing we’re at is sold out, and there’s not a kid in sight.

But that’s fine, because this isn’t really a kids’ film (although lots of them will love it too). This is squarely aimed at twenty-somethings: young adults who’ve grown up with the magical world existing alongside their own. This is a film for those grown-ups who know if they’re a Ravenclaw and proudly wear their house colours; who form the queues outside the now ubiquitous ‘Boy Wizard’ shops; who know so much about Rowling’s realm that they’re not bewildered by the huge cast of characters, nor by the casual references to familial relationships. This film is for them, and they are vast in number.

But it’s not for me. I’m not exactly a nay-sayer: I loved the first three Harry Potter books, and thought the others were okay. I quite liked the films too. I understand why they’re popular. But this latest instalment of the Fantastic Beasts spin-off is a step too far for the casual viewer, and it fails to work as a film in its own right.

I wasn’t keen on the last one, but at least it stuck to its remit: it was definitely about the beasts. This time, they’re peripheral; instead, we’re stuck in a world of dull politicking, with clumsy parallels to the rise of the far right. It’s worthy but hardly insightful, and it’s lacking any lightness or sparkle. It just doesn’t feel very magical at all.

Redmayne plays Eddie Redmayne very well; he’s had a lot of practice. He’s up to his usual schtick: all downcast eyes and vulnerability. I’d like to see him trying something else – and I’d like to see Newt develop too. Otherwise, the acting is pretty good, but no one has enough to do: Jude Law is wasted as young Dumbledore. Queenie (Alison Sudol) was my favourite character in the last movie, but she’s far more muted here, and less engaging as a result.

It all looks splendid, of course: the detail is stunning and the world well-realised. But it’s a boring story, with too many people and not enough animals. Enough already. Potter’s legacy should be better than this.

3 stars

Susan Singfield

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

19/11/18

The release of a new Coen Brothers movie is always something to look forward to but, in what is fast becoming a trend, this classy anthology of Western-themed stories has gone directly to Netflix. Early talk of a simultaneous theatrical release doesn’t seem to be much in evidence and, ironically, if ever a Coen Brothers’ film deserves to be viewed on the big screen, this is the one. With its gorgeous location photography and scenes that pay homage to veteran directors like John Ford and Sergio Leone, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a veritable feast for the eyes and is hardly done justice by the modest screen we have at home.

Still, this being a Coen Brothers movie, we aren’t going to let the opportunity to see it pass us by, even if we’re obliged to watch it on an iPad.

The Coens have always proudly displayed their evident love of the Western genre. There is, of course, True Grit, a superb remake of one of John Wayne’s most successful oaters; but even the likes of Hail Caesar and The Big Lebowski have gleefully sported cowboy characters, strangely at odds with the times in which the action is set – and what is No Country For Old Men but a contemporary Western, replete with violent gunplay and frantic chases across arid landscapes?

The conceit of TBOBS is that it’s presented as a book of short stories, each one complete with an accompanying Frederic Remington-style illustration that directly refers to the action. The stories vary greatly in tone: from the titular, singing-cowboy spoof, in which Tim Blake Nelson portrays a kind of psychopathic Roy Rogers, to the dour and savage Meal Ticket, in which limbless actor, Harrison (Harry Melling), struggles to make a living as he tours his oratory skills around a succession of frontier towns, while his impassive minder (Liam Neeson) watches and draws up his merciless plans for survival.

If the stories have a theme in common it’s that all of them deal with different aspects of death. There’s also the overriding conviction that most characters in the old West were ruled by cold-blooded self-interest. Even The Gal Who Got Rattled, the closest this film has to offer us in the way of a love story (and arguably the most compelling of the six tales), is haunted by a powerful sense of tragedy.

This is one of the Coens’ finest achievements, a brutal, bloody compilation laced with a thread of the darkest humour imaginable. And, if I’m being honest, who knows how well this would have fared at the cinema, where six part Western anthologies are as rare as hen’s teeth and where, so often, it’s mediocrity that succeeds in putting bums on seats?

That said, if you should be lucky enough to live near a cinema that’s actually screening this little gem, mosey on down there and grab yourself a Stetson-full. Or just go to Netflix. The simple truth is that whatever sized screen you end up viewing it on, this is filmmaking of the highest calibre.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Suspiria

 

18/11/18

After the sublime Call Me By Your Name, director Luca Guadagnino could probably have made pretty much any film he wanted to. For some reason, he’s landed on a remake of Dario Argento’s 1977 giallo masterpiece, Suspiria. This is starting to feel like a trend. After Steve McQueen’s recent reinterpretation of Lynda La Plante’s Widows, I wonder what we can expect next? Guillermo Del Toro’s On the Buses, perhaps?

I’ll admit that I’ve long had a soft spot for the original Suspiria. I first saw it at a University film society in the early 1980s. (I wasn’t even a student there, but they had the full uncensored cut, so naturally I inveigled my way in!) I had, I suppose, been expecting just another slice n’ dicer and was quite blown away by what I saw on the screen. To me, it was an almost overwhelming onslaught of vibrant colour, copious bloodshed and histrionic terror, quite unlike any other horror movie I’d ever seen. One thing it most certainly wasn’t was pretentious. Sadly, I can’t say the same about this film, which is long and rambling and only occasionally fizzes into enough life to fully command my attention. It feels as though it’s a long-cherished dream project for Guadagnino, and the problem with such an undertaking is that, while the director knows exactly what he’s trying to say at any given moment, the audience is not always quite so lucky.

The story is broken up into six acts, and is set in a divided Germany in 1977, where the news is all about the the Baader-Meinhoff separatists and their exploits in Entebbe. Patricia (Chloe Grace Moretz), a student at a prestigious dance academy in West Berlin, comes seeking the help of elderly (and suspiciously latex-faced) psychiatrist Dr Joseph Klemperer, before running off into the night, leaving her journal for Klemperer to read. We then meet Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson), who duly arrives at the self-same dance academy, eagerly looking to enrol. At her audition, she manages to catch the eye of influential dance tutor, Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton), but not everything here is as it appears…

While Guadagnino certainly doesn’t stint on the bloodletting and the nudity, he does attempt to intellectualise what was once a very straightforward tale of witchcraft and demonic possession, pulling in strands of other – seemingly disparate – stories,  with the result that they feel clumsily crowbarred into the proceedings. There’s the aforementioned Red Army Faction, and also Dr Klemperer’s tragic history during the Second World War, which, if nothing else, gives Suspiria’s original star, Jessica Harper, a brief cameo. And sadly, the only dancing in evidence seems to consist of people writhing around on the floor without recourse to any music.

Of course, this being a Luca Guadagnino film, it’s not a total loss –  there’s a decent sense of foreboding throughout and some truly jarring bits of body horror – but with a punishing running time of two hours and thirty two minutes, this one is only for the hardiest viewers and those, like me, who can’t resist seeing how a brilliant original has been reinterpreted.

I have to say, my major feeling here is one of profound disappointment.

3 stars

Philip Caveney

Slaughterhouse Rulez

14/11/18

Comedy-horror is a notoriously tricky beast to master and few have had better results in this genre than Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Both Shaun of the Dead and World’s End fall squarely into this category and even Hot Fuzz (their very best film) sports a handful of horror elements expertly woven into the action. For this first release from their production company, Stolen Picture, they content themselves with supporting roles, but their handprints are all over Slaughterhouse Rulez, even if they are missing Edgar Wright’s sure-footed directorial skills.

After the death of his father, working class lad Don Wallace (Finn Cole) is sent off by his well-meaning mum to the imposing Slaughterhouse Public School, where she hopes he will have the benefit of a superior education. Once there, he finds himself sharing a dorm room with Willoughby Blake (Asa Butterfield), a louche, moody character who seems to be housing a whole clutch of secrets.

Don’s acquisitive eye soon falls on posh girl Clemsie Lawrence (Hermione Corfield), but she seems to have eyes for somebody else – and besides, most of Don’s time is spent coping with the predations of the school bullies, chief amongst them the sadistic Clegg (Tom Rhys Harris). Meanwhile, the preening headmaster, known to the pupils only as ‘The Bat’ (Michael Sheen), has given permission for a fracking rig to operate in the forest that borders the school playing fields, a move that dismays troubled teacher, Meredith Houseman (Pegg), and which leads a band of anti-fracking protesters, led by Woody (Frost), to set up camp in the woods.

As the drill descends into the ancient stones beneath the school, it releases something darker and even more dangerous than shale gas…

The set up here is nicely handled and captures the cruel and venal world of the boarding school all too well (trust me, I speak from personal experience). The large cast of characters are well drawn and engaging and, for the most part, the punch lines land pretty much where they should. It’s only when the film moves into its final third that things start to feel a little too protracted, too teased-out by attempts to tie the plot back to earlier events in the school’s history.

A more direct approach would have paid dividends here and kept the pace from flagging, which it undoubtedly does in places; but this is nonetheless a decent entertainment with some gloriously visceral carnage that’s never allowed to be so icky that it overpowers the humour. Those hoping for a Pegg-Frost reunion will have to be content with the one brief scene they share – but, for their first offering as producers, this really isn’t a bad start.

4 stars

Philip Caveney