Basement (2010)

I give up, I really do. It seems that every time I waste my energy defending Danny Dyer in the face of overwhelming negativity he just comes along and shovels another load of manure on top of his increasingly implausible career. The fact that he still gets work at the moment does, I concede, beggar belief but here he is lending his standard geezer schtick to yet another awful British horror movie. This is the kind of movie that easily allows you to misspell his surname as "Dire".

The plot is all about five anti-war protestors who stop off in the middle of their journey home to allow Gary (Danny Dyer) to go and water the plants. That then leads to the group finding the entrance to some underground corridors and, of course, going in and wandering around aimlessly until they become trapped and then find themselves in danger. Never fear, there's a not-so-cunning twist that makes up for the hour or so spent watching people wander along the same bit of set shot from a number of different angles.

Asham Kamboj is the man responsible for directing this piece of rubbish and he also came up with the original idea, developed into the screenplay by Ewen Glass, so he can get most of the blame. The film may only run for about 75 minutes but it feels like it goes on for oh so much longer. Dialogue is, frankly, risible and characterisations are poor.

There's a slight chance that the material could have been lifted by a better cast but that's something that will never be proven, saddled as the film is with Dyer, Jimi Mistry (complete with an awful, exaggerated accent), Emily Beecham, Kierston Wareing and Lois Winstone. Christopher Ellison actually does a good job despite the awful dialogue that he's given but the rest of the cast range from the pretty poor to the downright awful.

There's almost absolutely nothing here to recommend this as a film to watch. One or two ideas would have been interesting if they were in a better movie, here they just crop up as unsurprising revelations after too much has already been revealed before the finale. There's no tension, no decent gore, no sign of intelligence and no real talent on display either behind or in front of the camera.

2/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Basement-DVD-Danny-Dyer/dp/B003QPTVOM/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1344965443&sr=8-3