Red Mist AKA Freakdog (2008)

You might know of Paddy Breathnach already if you note down the names of people involved with movies that you disliked because a LOT of people disliked Shrooms.  I only ended up giving it a generous 5/10 after a rewatch allowed me to enjoy individual elements while my anger abated. Red Mist AKA Freakdog is a slight improvement over Shrooms but it only just provides a better viewing experience, mainly thanks to the echoes of Patrick. The main thing dragging it down is . . . . . . . . . . . well, I'll get to that shortly.

Andrew Lee Potts plays Kenneth, a shy and stuttering hospital worker who likes to look at corpses and cut himself. He's not a well man and doesn't have the best social skills but that doesn't stop him from trying to get close to Catherine (Arielle Kebbel), a young woman learning her craft at the hospital. When Catherine is out one evening with a group of her colleagues (played by Alex Wyndham, Katie McGrath, Sarah Carter and Martin Compston) things take a turn for the worse when Kenneth approaches the group and is brutally rebuffed. He then tells them that he has footage on his phone of one of them sneaking drugs from the pharmacy, drugs that they have been using for recreational purposes. The group then decide to let Kenneth join in with their fun but only so that they can spike his drink and teach him a lesson. As is often the case, things go wrong and Kenneth ends up in a coma. Catherine feels incredibly guilty but her colleagues just want everything to be over so that they can get on with their lives. In an attempt to help out, Catherine visits the comatose Kenneth and starts to secretly administer some experimental drugs that she hopes may help his condition. That's when people start acting as if they're possessed while trying to kill everyone who helped put Kenneth where he is. Could Kenneth be reaching out from his hospital bed? Is it the experimental drug?

The idea may not be an original one but it's not bad. The screenplay by Spence Wright covers familiar ground and it sits very much at the mid-point of quality when it comes to this type of fare. Breathnach does okay with the direction, though it would have been nice to see things getting a bit nastier during the death scenes, and the cast features those already mentioned plus Stephen Dillane and MyAnna Buring (I'll admit it, I like to watch the lovely Miss Buring in anything, so sue me).

BUT, and it is a big but (so big that Sir Mix-A-Lot himself may pop along to admire it), everything in the film from the acting to the unfolding plot to the dialogue exchanges between characters is undone by one huge mis-step. For some reason, those involved decided to try and make the whole thing appear as if it was set in America. Not in any convincing way, you understand, as that would take too much effort and care. Oh no, this movie being set in America means that we get a horrible mix of accents from the poor actors onscreen, a few establishing shots of somewhere that we're supposed to accept is America and then . . . . . . . . . . . well, that's it. There's not really anything else to help convince viewers that they're watching a movie set in the USA. It's as if Paddy Breathnach and Spence Wright watched Slaughter High and thought "well, we can make something as bad as that". Yet I still love Slaughter High to this day, it has a goofy charm to it and feels like those involved actually did their best with what they had. This movie misses that, which is why it also ends up with a generous 5/10 and why I am now wondering whether or not I should stop being so easily pleased.

5/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Red-Mist-Blu-ray-Arielle-Kennel/dp/B0029TQW98/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1346363564&sr=1-2

Devil's Playground (2010)

Director Mark McQueen and writer Bart Ruspoli are the men responsible for this British zombie horror movie and it's a shame that they take a few decent moments and ground them in a movie that's just far too derivative and silly to please many fans. The first hurdle it has is the cast (I am possibly the one person I know who likes watching Danny Dyer onscreen), the second hurdle is the familiarity with all of the material and the third, and biggest, hurdle is that this movie features zombies doing parkour. Oh yes, you read that correctly. Freerunning zombies, that's the fresh approach that this film tries to take with the material. Needless to say, it's a stinker of an idea that translates into a number of risible moments within the film.

So, the plot is as follows: Lots of people have been undergoing medical trials for a new wonderdrug and when things go wrong they go REALLY wrong. Everyone is affected badly, all but one - a woman (Angela, played by MyAnna Buring) who the folks in charge now want to get a hold of, what with her possibly possessing some kind of cure that could stop a major epidemic and all that. Craig Fairbrass plays Cole, a man who is used to being given the jobs that need to be done but don't ever need to be admitted to, and he is the one sent to find Angela. Meanwhile, Danny Dyer plays Joe, a cop who used to go out with Angela but had to put the relationship on hold when he went and stupidly shot some kid by accident. These people may be able to help each other survive while crowds of bitey bitey freerunners run amock but they will have to overcome many various difficulties - locations, emotional issues, threats from other people wanting to survive - on the way.

There's very little I can say right now that will win you over if you already think that you're going to dislike this film. Because, let's be honest, you're probably going to dislike this film. The acting is so-so from all involved (as much as I like the lad, Dyer gives an especially poor performance here but Fairbrass is good at what he does and Buring is watchable) while the script is nothing more than a 90 minute game of "spot the reference", be it from 28 Days Later... or the Resident Evil movies or anthing else that has come along since. There's not one original idea here except for the freerunning, and whoever thought of that should be taken to the nearest, large town square available and publically flogged.

There are a few good SFX moments here and there showing the infection taking hold and there are a couple, though not enough, of good gore moments. The rest of the cast at least features people such as Colin Salmon, Jaime Murray, Sean Pertwee, Shane Taylor and Craig Conway so there are a number of familiar faces to support the leads but it's not enough to save the film.

Dear British filmmakers, please note that in any future scripts you may want to develop the word "zombie" should never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever EVER be preceded by the word "freerunning". Thanks.

4/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devils-Playground-DVD-Danny-Dyer/dp/B003B3SQ68