Shudder Saturday: Cherry Tree (2015)

The last film from director David Keating was Wake Wood, an enjoyable folk horror movie that I, as so often happens, enjoyed more than many other people. It was an enjoyable riff on familiar material, well put together and featuring some quality cast members in the main roles. Reading that Cherry Tree was in a slightly similar vein, and also written by Brendan McCarthy (the co-writer of Wake Wood), I hoped to once again find a film that I enjoyed than many other people. Sadly, that wasn't the case. It came close though.

Naomi Battrick plays Faith, a schoolgirl who gets through every day while carrying the weight of the knowledge that her father, Sean (Sam Hazeldine), will soon die from a terminal disease. An unlikely chance of salvation arrives in the form of Sissy Young (Anna Walton), a witch who makes a deal with Anna. Get pregnant and deliver the newborn to her . . . and Faith's father will live. It's a deal that seems too good to pass up, of course, and Faith agrees, but it's not long until she starts to have concerns about what is going to happen when she hands over the baby. Oh, and as this is a spooky and special kind of pregnancy, it will take Faith weeks, rather than months, to reach full term.

I was going to use this part of the review to mention how Cherry Tree has a good idea at the heart of it. That's not really true though. The more I think about it, the weaker the film seems. It's a very basic idea, a Faustian pact, and it isn't developed in a way that allows you to see any real progression in the characters. The deal is made, two people start to dislike one another, someone tries to call the deal off, the deal cannot be broken, etc.

Keating directs with a lack of any real style, although he manages to insert a few images in the third act that stand out because of how dark and bloody things get (you're always going to find things a bit darker when there's a baby involved in the midst of everything), and McCarthy's script is about as perfunctory as you could get. And let's not even mention the "punchline" at the very end of the film, which is written AND directed in a way that made me fully laugh aloud just as the end credits started to roll. I cannot recall the last time I watched a movie so spectacularly shoot itself in the face at the very last moment, and I admit I was still considering trying to err on the side of generosity up until that scene.

Battrick and Walton aren't too bad in their roles, despite working with a script that forces them to keep a straight face while delivering some utter bilge, but the rest of the cast , from Hazeldine to Elva Trill and Patrick Gibson, playing paper-thin main supporting characters, give performances that are disappointingly flat and unengaging.

While it's made with a certain level of technical competence, and has some moments that show great use of a relatively small budget, there isn't enough done with the central premise. It may only clock in at 85 minutes, but this could have easily been a 20-minute short. It feels less like a full-blooded feature film and more like a Hollyoaks Halloween special for most of the runtime, and, with respect to any Hollyoaks fans who may stumble upon this, that's not something I would consider a good thing.

3/10

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Shudder Saturday: Soulmate (2013)

A well-handled debut feature from writer-director Axelle Carolyn, Soulmate is a film that uses supernatural trappings to explore something very grounded, which is namely how difficult people can find it to move on after losing a loved one.

The first person we see suffering is Audrey (played by Anna Walton). She has recently lost her husband, and attempts suicide at the very start of the movie. She then rents a cottage, where she hopes to have some time to rest and get better. Unfortunately, the cottage still has a spirit residing there, in the shape of Douglas (Tom Wisdom), a young man who managed to commit suicide after the death of the woman he loved. After an initial fright, Audrey starts to find herself enjoying conversations with Douglas, despite warnings from a local couple, Theresa (Tanya Myers) and Dr, Zellaby (Nick Brimble). Audrey thinks they are either not wanting to believe her or not wanting to condone her actions, but perhaps they are just thinking of her safety.

Inevitably too slow and uneventful for anyone seeking standard horror movie thrills, Soulmate is best viewed as a straightforward drama that happens to also feature a ghost. If you're hoping for either The Conjuring type levels of spookiness or The Ghost And Mrs. Muir type levels of humorous interaction between a living tenant and dead "squatter" then you'll be disappointed here. This looks at a number of people adversely affected by loss. Although Audrey and Douglas are the main focus, it also becomes obvious that there's something drawing Theresa to the cottage, and its inhabitant, and the third act draws things together in a way that you suspect may not play out well for those involved.

Carolyn does well enough, the film looks good and the script develops the characters in a way that lends more weight to the words and actions as things head towards the finale, but it all feels a bit like something too stagey at times, despite one or two scenes set outdoors. It's a chamber piece and, as such, feels more like the kind of thing you could catch on TV in the evening than a film you would seek out on streaming/disc.

Although not perfect in their roles, everyone does decent work. Walton is a very good lead, mainly just because I like her and would like to see her in more roles that don't have me spending the first few minutes thinking I am watching Rebecca Ferguson, and Wisdom gets to play his ghostly character without any clichéd ghostly mannerisms. Myers isn't as good, but does fine in her role, and Brimble makes the most of moments that have him warning of a danger he won't explain in any more detail. There's also a very small, welcome, role for Emma Cleasby at the end of the film.

It's always a bit tricky when reviewing a film like this to find a balance. You cannot "punish" it for not being the film you expected it to be, yet it's also not good to praise it too much just because it does something a bit different, as admirable as that is. There really should have been a few more scares scattered throughout this, or some more gripping drama between some of the main characters. As it is, the end result sits uncomfortable between the two worlds, not entirely unlike the sad male ghost at the centre of things.

5/10

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Deviation (2012)

Saying that Deviation isn't the worst movie that Danny Dyer has ever starred in is a bit like saying that the damage to your social life isn't the worst thing about having the Ebola virus. Either way, you're in a whole world of pain. I've long ago stopped expecting anything other than the same lazy, wide-boy geezer act in every one of his movies and he hasn't done anything to prove me wrong in the last five years or so.

Writer/director J. K. Amalou is the latest person to give Dyer some time onscreen and pocket money to spend on Burberry and substances designed to further destroy his braincells which makes him the person to point the finger at. He picked Dyer for the main role, he wrote the awful script that Dyer gets to work with and he directed the movie in a . . . . . . . . . well, to be fair, the direction of the film isn't TOO bad in places. Dammit, I hate being fair-minded sometimes.

Dyer plays Frank Norton, a murderer and a geezer. Which means that he just turns in yet another lazy, wide-boy geezer act mentioned in the opening paragraph. His character appears only a minute or two into the movie, taking a nurse (Amber, played by Anna Walton) hostage and driving around to different places for no obvious reason, other than padding the idea out to feature film length. His background is relayed to viewers during a clumsy moment when he fiddles with the car radio during various news reports. Which sums up the entire film.

Anna Walton does slightly better than Dyer, but she's hampered by two big problems. The first is that terrible script. The second is the fact that she has to continually share the screen with Dyer. The main role wouldn't be good for any actor, the character of Norton changes his mind and mood every few minutes in a way that is supposed to be interesting and clever but comes across as juvenile and silly. It's serious mental illness as written by a ten-year-old. The erratic performance from Dyer is, subsequently, a complete shambles, a car crash of a performance reminding everyone of the big question: "just how does this man continue to get work?" The rest of the cast includes James Doherty, David Fynn, Alan McKenna and Roy Smiles, but it's Dyer you'll be unable to forget, for all the wrong reasons, after the end credits roll.

As I said earlier, the direction isn't too bad. It's competent, and the only element of the movie I can bring myself to praise (even though it leaves a bad taste in my mouth to do so). The rest, in case you couldn't read my subtle cues, is terrible. Implausible, impossible to care about, horribly misanthropic and down at the bottom of the septic tank with so many other Danny Dyer movies.

2/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Deviation-Blu-ray-Danny-Dyer/dp/B00696WONU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1366761348&sr=8-2&keywords=deviation