Southcliffe (2013) User Reviews

A compelling watch.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 23 March 2020]

Southcliffe, a sleepy English town suffers a major tragedy, innocent people are gunned down by Stephen Morton for no apparent reason, Journalist David Whitehead attempts to get to the bottom of why.

It's a bleak watch, don't expect any cheer or light hearted moments, this is a tough watch. Very solid from start to finish, for me the best episode is the first one, you learn so much from it.

It jumps around a little in terms of timeframe, so it does need a degree of concentration. Some very big characters, some you'll like, most you won't, the worst perhaps being Paul, who really is a monster.

Sean Harris leads initially before handing over to Rory Kinnear, the pair are terrific.

David keeps on saying they should have seen it coming, was he right? I think so.

Very good 8/10.

Sizzling start fizzles at finish

[hayley96 · 6/10 · 27 December 2014]

There a lot of British crime dramas out there to watch. So something that offers a different hook - a show about the town's people and a journalist returning home - is enticing. On its face that's what Southcliffe offers. Small town life not as kind as it seems, a guy on the fringe, a soldier coming home, a cocky Lothario pub owner - it mixes together nicely. The first two episodes show us the events leading up to the mass shooting from different points of view and a little of the back story of the reporter coming home to cover the shooting.

Then the wheels come off. Episodes three and four drag us through the aftermath of the shootings and offer up the possibility that perhaps the shooter is still at large. The reporter - disgraced for a Youtube captured tirade against the town - returns a year later to tie up loose ends. And, NOTHING happens. Long,, painful, extended scenes of survivors demeaning themselves. A sort of dead end on the "he's still alive" theory. Similar to The Leftovers, the overall feeling is "what a waste of time."

The aftermath of a massacre

[Tweekums · 7/10 · 19 August 2013]

This bleak drama opens with a woman being shot as she tends her garden; we then go back to see what led ex-squaddie Stephan Morton to go on a killing spree. He learn how nobody took him seriously and mocked his claims to have served in the SAS; this escalates and he is brutally attacked by a serving soldier and a former member of the regiment. The next day he shoots the mother he has been caring for before setting off and shooting at anybody he can get in his sights. Later episodes show us the impact of what he did on the bereaved, on the community as a whole and on a journalist who has returned to Southcliffe to report on the events but is still haunted by his miserably childhood there.

If you like your drama bleak then this is for you; everything about the location from the foggy marshes to the plaintive calls of the marsh birds serves to keep things suitably downbeat. Sean Harris, who seems the go-to guy if you want a psychopath, goes a fine job as Morton and the excellent Shirley Henderson is great as bereaved mother Claire. Things start well but unfortunately turn overly melodramatic when TV reporter David Whitehead has a meltdown on air then goes to the pub and tells the locals they had it coming! There is also no explanation of how Morton is in possession of an AK-47 as such weapons were banned after the frequently referenced Hungerford shootings in the '80s. Despite these flaws it is still worth watching if you like emotional dramas; and at only four episodes you won't waste too much to if you don't like it.

Finally, a UK television drama with some balls!

[azanti0029 · 5 August 2013]

The first part of this was shown last night, and directed with a steady hand and unravelling at its own pace, its clearly a drama that's not going to be rushed.

The writers have taken the real events of Hungerford, Cumbria and Dunblane as their inspiration here, showing the characters and the sparks that lead up to one man (Sean Harris, brilliantly haunting) snapping and begin his random killing spree in a small fictional town in the UK. The tones here match the bleak morning fog of this sleepy coastal community and the camera takes it's time, not always showing you everything you want to see, a statement perhaps that the film makers here are willing to take risks and its all the better for it. Clearly taking well grounded advice from shows such as 'The Killing' time is taken to show all sides of a person so there will be more emotional consequence for the viewer later on as the first episode ended with the spree just beginning, though we were given a taste of this already at the start.

It's style won't be to everyone's taste and I am sure some will find it a bit slow, but in a time of never ending crap reality TV and repetitive game shows, its about time someone showed some balls and made these sorts of gritty dramas that we used to be so good at. It gets my vote and I look forward to seeing more tonight.

It was all going so well...

[jiballini64 · 6/10 · 28 September 2020]

And then episode 4 happened. I got very confused. Claire was bonkers, I had not the first inkling what Chris was doing, nor the journalist dude, nor Chris's uncle. In fact the whole thing turned into a giant "Huh?" I couldn't quite grasp the reasoning behind any of their actions/behaviour. Nor did I really care as none of the characters were either likeable or relatable. A shame.

slow at times...needed more of a clear story line

[cathie454 · 6/10 · 5 August 2014]

This is a look into a small community and how they deal with a mass shooting in their town. The reporter who comes to report on the story (from a big news agency) was originally from the small town, and so his ties to it and understanding of it should have added to the story, but it really didn't, since his life was told in as disjointed a way as all the other characters' stories. It was hard to follow the story, as it goes back and forth in time as well as back and forth with various character's stories and their time lines. Also, it was slow, I think because the director was trying to give a picture of each victim's family and situation, as well as the shooter's family and situation; I think if the story had been told differently, it would have been easier to become involved in the story. This would have made more sense if there was a more linear story line. As it is, it's OK, but I wouldn't recommend this, and I wouldn't want to watch it again.

Very brave

[cozmosmalls · 9/10 · 6 January 2015]

This is the first time I have seen anyone brave enough to point the finger at the community. 'Oddballs' are often as much the product of the community as they are self determination. There are always people in small towns who are picked on and abused, stripped of the self confidence to leave the situation, unable to withstand the status quo. That spree killings don't happen more often I find miraculous. Some people have nothing to lose, society has taken it all away. This is an excellent piece of drama, finely acted, brave enough to remove the focus away from the perpetrator for the majority of the 4 episodes. The really SHOULD have seen it coming.

Subtle, Understated, & Devastating.

[brendanofarrell-14941 · 10/10 · 2 September 2017]

A bereft husband walks along the bank of a quiet river until he comes to his wife curled on the ground, crying for their deceased daughter. He doesn't run to his wife. Instead, he only picks up his pace slightly as he takes off his coat and puts it over her crumpled body. He helps her up and looks over the marsh as a gentle wind blows the reedy grasses haphazardly about. "I'll take you home," he says. "Okay? I'll take you home."

The husband's gesture is rooted in futility and pain, beauty and kindness. As Thomas Wolfe once wrote, "You can never go home again." This is particularly true when you live in Southcliffe--a quaint but provincial town set in gloomy, fictional England. A lone gunman has gone on a killing spree, murdering a number of community members without ceremony or fanfare. One neighbor is working in her garden. There are no witness to her murder. Only a single bullet from afar.

The husband and wife crying along the river bank are just two more of town's victim-survivors, grappling to come to terms with what's left of their life. The mass shooting and the murder of their daughter took place more than a year ago when the scene is presented. You can never go home again.

This is how the four-part miniseries unwinds for its viewers. It is a slow and patient drama that jumps from past to present and back again. It is a masterpiece of pace and elliptical pauses. The acting is heart-wrenching and brilliant. The script soars with unadorned language in which some of the most vicious and touching lines unfold in the spaces between words.

You can never go home again. For T.V. Journalist David Whithead (Rory Kinear), who has been sent back to his hometown to cover the unfolding tragedy, this statement means something entirely different. As a boy growing up in Southcliffe, he was routinely bullied by the townsfolk in the wake of his father's sudden and unexpected death. He knows Southcliffe to be a brutal and unforgiving place wrapped in the niceties of dishonesty and pretense. Yet, at the command of his manager, return he must. In the year that follows, we watch him--and several others in the community--struggle with the tragedy's psycho-emotional aftermath: Were the shootings really random? Did we, as a community, do something to deserve them?

The husband's gesture to take his wife back to their home is beautiful and kind--not because things are going to be any better when they walk through the front door--but rather because the husband is committed to suffering eternally with his wife and the town of Southcliffe.

Stuff happens, so what?

[paul2001sw-1 · 5/10 · 20 August 2013]

Sometimes, stuff just happens, and it's not always pretty. 'Southcliffe' fictionalises rare but real stories when a loner has flipped and gone out and shot up his not so loving local community; and as such, it's quite realistic. The problem is, there isn't any real narrative here (at least, nothing sufficiently meaty to justify the happenings); and although in part this is the entire point of the series, it's also a slightly self-defeating point to make in a drama. It's hard to feel too involved when there's no underlying cause to events: the story of a journalist caught up in events has a similar, believable but essentially arbitrary feel. I often like series that give us no easy answers; but in the absence even of any real questions, this one didn't do it for me.

Excellent if you are human

[bionic820-1 · 10/10 · 29 May 2018]

Very well done. Don't compare to everything else you have seen out there. More to come...

Slow and unrealistic

[tr91 · 4/10 · 20 August 2013]

Southcliffe really did sound promising after all I had read about it. There were quite a few familiar faces, the set looked perfect for the storyline and the plot was good. Stephen Morton as Sean Harris was an extremely dark and mysterious character who eventually goes on a killing spree in Southcliffe, we then see how this affects the lives of others.

My main problem with Southcliffe was it was just painfully slow, the killing spree did happen quite quickly but everything else was hard to follow, there was so many different people affected by this and it was hard to keep track of who was who, and it just seemed completely unrealistic. The acting wasn't that great, certainly not powerful enough to make me believe a loved one had just died. I got half way through the 3rd episode and I was getting bored, I just couldn't relate to the characters or feel any emotion because it was so unrealistic and slow paced and I just had to stop watching it. There was just no explanation as to why Stephen Morton had just gone on a killing spree.

Overall I was disappointed with the series but I can see why people would enjoy it, it was dark and there was tension. It did have all the makings for a great TV mini-series but maybe it just wasn't for me. I haven't given it a rating because I didn't manage to watch it in full.

Not nearly as good as it thinks it is

[fiona_r_lamb · 3/10 · 21 September 2017]

I so wanted to like this. And I am so disappointed that I did not.

And I didn't like the way the film was edited at all. For me it was too choppy, and lacked cohesion. The characters were all very unlikeable. Just did not work for me. It had promise, a good idea but it just was not fleshed out properly.

Shirley Henderson used to be a good actress - what happened? The scene where she enters what she thinks is a brothel was just AWFUL.

But most of all it just wasn't believable. For example - and MAJOR spoiler alert - the two men who assaulted Stephen, the gunman, and who provoked him into killing got away with it. The story should have revolved around their guilt and shame and even though the show touched upon it with the younger man trying to kill himself a year later, it was not nearly enough.

The only good thing is it's 4 x 45 minutes long so not too drawn out.

Absolutely Dire - Save Your Time And Watch Something Else

[stevealdridge-34604 · 1/10 · 7 March 2024]

Even with just 4 episodes, 45 minutes long, this was torture. Almost from the outset, you could see that all that was of concern here was to try and make a variation on a story that has been done so many times that it was bound to fail.

It has attempted to be part drama/part documentary style and the second of these always fails. God knows why this won any awards.

Cliche characters abound. The bullied ex resident returns to town and surprise surprise doesn't handle the situation well. An ex SAS man comes to the rescue of his relative who is in the army and has been shot at by the gunman. An appalling cliche then runs where these two brutalise the town oddball so that he goes on a killing spree.

As for some of the victims and their stories they are just unbelievable.

The last episode takes place a year after the killing. It's not clear what has happened to the gunman who went on the killing spree so the journalist who had a meltdown in episode 3 returns to Southcliffe to have another go at speaking to people he'd said deserved to be shot. We're not told for certain whether the gunman is at large. How's that for an omission.

Avoid this like the plague. It is truly awful.

Could have been good.

[TomFarrell63 · 5/10 · 26 April 2023]

This tries to be different and in the process just ends up a confused mess.

Could have been a decent crime mini series had it been told in a traditional way, but the way the time lines chop and change just end up making the whole thing disjointed. I thought I was going a bit loopy at first when things from a previous scene were repeated were repeated, it took a while to cotton on that this was the way the story was being told.

In its favour it does have a real sense of grimness to it, but that's not enough to rescue it unfortunately.

The acting is of a high calibre for the most part throughout and cinematography is atmospheric.

However, it just doesn't gel.