An alcoholic teacher has to save his estranged daughter when a group of hooded youths attack the school at night....
I liked the idea behind this film, but sadly as written, it doesn't quite work. The characters are largely unappealing so you don't really care what happens to them. For an 18-rated film, there is a surprising lack of on-screen violence. You don't actually see much on-screen, instead usually only seeing the bodies afterwards.
As a result, then the writer/director Johannes Roberts has to rely on his skill with a camera to create tension and any scares he can, and to be fair he does get the building tension as the film progresses just right. There are a couple of scares, but not many.
The cast do their best to look scared or terrified, but as said, the script makes them mostly unappealing people so you have no feelings for them and don't care if they live or die.
Another fault, for me anyway, was the apparent lack of motivation for the attack. Was it revenge for something? Did they attack out of boredom? Something to indicate why they were doing it might have helped I feel.
But Johannes Roberts does managed to partially redeem the film with a truly unsettling ending. I can't recall a recent film with an ending like this, and it actually works brilliantly.
Sadly though it is his writing that lets him down, which is a shame, as potentially this could have been very good indeed.
A missed opportunity.
I liked the idea behind this film, but sadly as written, it doesn't quite work. The characters are largely unappealing so you don't really care what happens to them. For an 18-rated film, there is a surprising lack of on-screen violence. You don't actually see much on-screen, instead usually only seeing the bodies afterwards.
As a result, then the writer/director Johannes Roberts has to rely on his skill with a camera to create tension and any scares he can, and to be fair he does get the building tension as the film progresses just right. There are a couple of scares, but not many.
The cast do their best to look scared or terrified, but as said, the script makes them mostly unappealing people so you have no feelings for them and don't care if they live or die.
Another fault, for me anyway, was the apparent lack of motivation for the attack. Was it revenge for something? Did they attack out of boredom? Something to indicate why they were doing it might have helped I feel.
But Johannes Roberts does managed to partially redeem the film with a truly unsettling ending. I can't recall a recent film with an ending like this, and it actually works brilliantly.
Sadly though it is his writing that lets him down, which is a shame, as potentially this could have been very good indeed.
A missed opportunity.