Prime Time: Boys From County Hell (2020)

While I have forgotten the details of it since, I was lucky enough to see, and enjoy, the short film version of Boys From County Hell back in 2013 at the Dead By Dawn horror film festival. I remember it being fun, bloody, and entertainingly playful with a well-known horror archetype. I don't know why I never made time before now for the feature, but the main thing is that I have done so now. 

Written and directed by Chris Baugh (who also helmed the superb Bad Day For The Cut), expanding on the story idea co-created with Brendan Mullin, this is a tale of two friends, Eugene (Jack Rowan) and William (Fra Fee), who are reacting in very different ways to the fact that nothing of interest ever happens in their small town. Tourists stop by now and again, interested in a local legend that apparently inspired Bram Stoker's most famous writing, but even that will become a rarity when a new bypass is built. And that bypass project will be headed up by Eugene's dad (Francis, played by Nigel O'Neill), which will make the pair of them about as popular as a hedgehog at a bouncy castle party. Despite the hostility towards them, Eugene and his dad, joined by Claire (Louisa Harland) and SP (Michael Hough), end up trying their best to keep the locals safe when it transpires that the local legend has returned. And is hungry.

While it's easy to recommend Boys From County Hell as a very enjoyable horror comedy, thanks to it delivering enough laughs and bloodshed in equal measure, it's important to note that it works as well as it does because of the central characters and the journey that we see them go on. Eugene and William are separated from one another in a way that leaves a painful hole too easily filled with guilt and recriminations, which is similar to the space always there between Eugene and his father. Claire doesn't have time for the men unable to see beyond their own insecurities and self-flagellation, but she soon shows that she has a determination and strength that makes her unlikely to stick around in a small town for too long, if she survives the dangerous night ahead.

Baugh takes time to set everything up in the first half hour, but does so while throwing in some minor scares and foreboding moments on the way to the more action-packed second half. It's a good move to start with a powerful and chilling scene before then hopping back in time to show how that moment eventually comes about, and it's also good to have one or two heavy emotional wallops that reverberate through the rest of the runtime.

Rowan makes a great lead, and works brilliantly with absolutely everyone around him. Fee and Harland both get good moments, Hough is responsible for a few of the funniest lines, and O'Neill has fun playing someone so amusingly cold and inconsiderate for most of his screentime. John Lynch and Andrea Irvine are welcome additions, and Morgan C. Jones steals one or two scenes as Charlie, a man who is changed in a way that allows everyone else to see just how weird and deadly their circumstances have become.

It's hard to think of anyone who will hate this, as long as you know roughly what you're in for. The characters are good company, the gags are often all the funnier for being nicely understated amidst the unfolding horror, and there's a good bit of tension in the finale. One or two plot points are a bit too silly and ridiculous, all in service of the comedy though (which I don't begrudge), but the end result is simply a good time for those wanting something that's entertaining, charming, and clocks in at just under 90 minutes.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share 

The Watched (2024)

AKA The Watchers.

Here is a film in which Dakota Fanning plays someone who spends a large portion of the runtime being watched, hence the title, and it must be said that she's a very watchable presence onscreen.

That doesn't mean that The Watched is one to watch though, sadly. This is a bad, messy, film that starts off weak and then just gets worse and worse, en route to a thoroughly disappointing ending.

Fanning plays Mina, a young woman obviously struggling to get through everyday life while dealing with her emotional/mental health baggage. She ends up in a mysterious forest in Ireland where she encounters a group of trapped individuals, subsequently becoming trapped alongside them. There are rules, there are entities watching them, and Mina might not really mind being caught in such a limbo state that keeps her focused on the here and now.

The feature debut of Ishana Shyamalan, who adapted the story from the novel by A. M. Shine and directed this, that's the most obvious explanation for The Watched feeling like one of the weaker stories presented to audiences by her father, M. Night Shyamalan. That may seem harsh, but it's impossible to spot the familiar surname, watch this film unfold, and not come to the conclusion that this is the work of a child trying, and failing, to emulate/impress a parent. It's a stick figure drawing passed across for the approval of someone who is responsible for some superb oil-on-canvas portraits.

None of the cast are treated very well by the requirements of the script. Fanning languishes, her character fully defined by her unhappiness. Olwen Fouéré plays the nominal leader of the group, Madeline, and she has to deliver exposition and rules that ultimately make no sense. Georgina Campbell, Oliver Finnegan, and Alistair Brammer play the less important characters, and John Lynch appears just in time to test the patience and observation skills of exasperated viewers.

While there are a few nice visual flourishes here and there, nothing is impressive enough to make you forgive the lack of skill in the writing and directing department, which you could also describe as the lack of skill from Shyamalan. Perhaps this would all be more enjoyable if it was a TV episode (maybe one of The X-Files or a 2-part Grimm special), but it's not. It's a full feature film that some people thought would work well enough to enable audiences to suspend their disbelief and enjoy themselves for 102 minutes. 

The attempts to create tension don't work, the attempts to make the lead character sympathetic don't work, the backstory being used to feed into the narrative doesn't work. The Watched just doesn't work. Maybe we'll see Ishana Shyamalan do better with whatever she does next. At least she'll get the luxury of having another bite at the cherry, unlike a number of female film-makers who don't have the same good fortune.

3/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share

Shudder Saturday: The Banishing (2020)

I was optimistic when I started watching The Banishing. Director Christopher Smith is someone I have been a fan of for many years. Sean Harris is a superb actor. And Jessica Brown Findlay is someone I have been a huge fan of since her star-making turn a decade ago in Albatross. All of those people working together in a horror movie about a haunting . . . sign me up. 

What you have here is the tale of a young reverend (Linus Forster, played by John Heffernan) who moves into a haunted manor with his wife (Marianne, played by Findlay) and daughter (Adelaide, played by Anya McKenna-Bruce). They have been placed there by Bishop Malachi (John Lynch), a man aware of the troubled past of the property. As things start to become troublesome, to put it mildly, the Forsters may end up seeking help from a local named Harry Reed (Sean Harris), although there's just as much chance of him making things worse.

With a script from David Beton, Ray Bogdanovich, and Dean Lines, The Banishing is a huge disappointment for anyone who watches it for the same reasons that I had. It's a creaky and hokey horror movie written by people that seem to think they're serving up a great mix of the old and the new. They're not. They also seem to think the third act will surprise and impress viewers. It doesn't. In fact, this is a film that would probably be improved by removing any twists or turns. Making a more traditional haunted house movie could have led to it standing out more from the many Wan-iverse-inspired movies we've seen over the past decade or so.  The period setting helps, as the film is set in the 1930s, but nothing else really makes any impression. Even the cast, sadly.

Findlay is as watchable as ever, once again proving that she will add value to any project, but neither Heffernan nor McKenna-Bruce do anything of note. Lynch is the brooding figure who knows what's going on, but reveals nothing. Worst of all, Harris is completely left out to dry, portraying someone who is defined by his whispery voice and the constant knowledge that he is ultimately right while everyone else around him tries to make out otherwise.

Even Smith wastes the talent of Smith. This is the man who delivered a fantastic mix of chills and head-scratching drama with the likes of Creep, Triangle (my personal favourite), and Black Death. You wouldn't know that from this, a barely competent chiller that takes some of the mythos of the infamous Borley Rectory haunting and turns it into something you would expect to be helmed by a stumbling first-timer.

Interested in haunted house movies? There are many others that are more worthy of your time. Interested in  Borley Rectory? You could always read a number of fascinating articles on the place, or treat yourself to the superb Borley Rectory (written and directed by Ashley Thorpe, and a film that feels like the definitive Borley Rectory experience). And if you're simply after a great horror movie then you could always delve into the earlier filmography of Christopher Smith. I hope he comes back soon with something that once again shows off what he is really capable of.

3/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.

It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA

Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews