Offensive (2016) User Reviews

Rarely do we get horror channel movies as good as this

[omendata · 7/10 · 9 October 2019]

Just watched this on the horror channel and the movies are usually a bit pants but this one is a real surprise and no mistake; so much so I had to write this review right away before my utter enthusiasm for this film is put in writing.

Gets you right in the guts, you really feel for the old folks and it mirrors what is going on in London and virtually every city in the UK and in many places in europe so really resonated with me. The one reviewer who gives it 3 stars obviously lives in a plush neighbourhood with no crime and has never encountered the feral and utterly evil youth in our society today so really does not understand that the kids in this film are actually tame compared to what I have seen in my time as a police officer and in my home town of Glasgow; Try googling James Bulger or Charlene Downes mate, now that is true real life horror and disturbing!

I have to laugh at the one reviewer who thinks its cliche and too gory lol he obviously has not got a clue about what horror in the context of a movie is and wants to pontificate at great length over pointless comparisons with Death Wish - really?

As a horror fan the violence is glorious and got my horror glands pumping and I dont think i have had sweat running down my brow or jumped up and down demanding a kill for such a long time, WOW this film is a topper for such a low budget and no mistake. The pure terrorising of the old folks was done slowly and built up to a crescendo in a gloriously well directed way teasing us viewers in each scene and demanding retribution until it exploded on screen and gave the viewer release of the built up tension and satiated our thirst for non-stop bloody retribution and this is what horror is all about; this director knows what makes a good horror revenge film and I cannot wait to see more of his work if this is a taster of what is to come.

The acting is fine and the whole film just beats most of the trash horror that has been coming out of the US of late so do not listen to the usual 1-3 star single critic on this one - give it a go and you will be in for a gloriously head mashing, leg splitting, hammer-mungous and spade-tastic revenge treat!

Very well done

[rocknrelics · 7/10 · 5 May 2020]

A well made film, nothing groundbreaking, but very well directed and acted. If you're anything like me, it will make you feel angry seeing the police side with the aggressors, and you will root for the victims! Cannot understand why this isn't available to buy on disc anywhere, far better than a lot of stuff that is.

Not sure if this was meant to be funny but I couldn't stop laughing!

[Stevieboy666 · 6/10 · 10 October 2019]

A retired American couple inherit a French country house but must spend 12 months there in order to gain possession. They become terrorised by a loathsome gang of vicious teenagers but eventually snap and bloody revenge is in order. There are many flaws in this British movie. Despite being set in rural France (and it does use some nice locations) everybody here speaks fluent English. Russell Floyd looks good as the husband but his English accents keeps slipping out.We have a couple of comical cops who just seem to pop up all over the place at convenient times. There is an English teacher who plays a completely pointless role. Offensive is a bit of a slow burn but when the husband sees red and turns into a Charles Bronson type character crossed with a Hobo with a Shotgun (or shovel in this case) the violence, laughably far fetched as it is at times, goes into overdrive. Trust me, this is a violent, gory film. Fans of gore will not be disappointed. I couldn't help but root for our senior citizens. But I just couldn't help laughing at how it was all staged, pretty comical and very predictable. Not sure if that was the film makers intention but at least I enjoyed it.

Far better than expected

[Leofwine_draca · 7/10 · 27 August 2019]

OFFENSIVE is a surprisingly gritty slice of British horror and a lot better than you'd expect from this overworked genre. Despite being low budget, overly dark and too digital and cheap looking throughout, the story works a treat. An American couple move to rural France but thereafter find themselves menaced by a gang of youths. When the police won't help, they end up taking matters into their own hands.

There's a nasty vibe going on here, a real sense of fear a la STRAW DOGS, and the actors - including a guy best known for playing a market inspector in EASTENDERS - work hard to convince. The whole thing plays out like a Brexiteer fantasy, and the oppressive atmosphere early on is hard to watch. Once the revenge plot kicks in halfway through, though, things get very satisfying, a la HOSTEL.

Surprisingly good fodder

[kristenpcollyer · 8/10 · 4 May 2020]

Just watched this on Horror Channel, although i don't necessarily class it as horror per se it is a great little watch. You really get on the side of the "Victims" and are really rooting for their revenge! It was a smudge stretched how it ends but it was juuuust enough to put closure to it! A good gory revenge jaunt!

Very enjoyable horror/revenge thriller from director Jon Ford.

[HarryLomart1972 · 7 September 2019]

Well done to director Jon Ford for creating the brilliant horror/revenge thriller Offensive. If you enjoy revenge thrillers like Death Wish and Harry Brown then you'll love Offensive. A retired couple are targeted by a cruel gang of street youths with disastrous consequences. Offensive definitely kept me on the edge of my seat throughout and had some very tense and disturbing scenes which fans of the genre will love. I won't give anything else away so please go and check out Offensive as you won't be disappointed.

A Good Watch

[daviddunn-90653 · 6/10 · 10 July 2021]

In spite of some very wooden acting, this is actually rather enjoyable if you like a bit of blood and gore. Turn off your brain for ninety minutes, suspend reality, and you may enjoy this too.

Low budget home invasion film of the STRAW DOGS variety

[vampire_hounddog · 5/10 · 28 August 2020]

A retired American couple (Russell Floyd and Lisa Eichhorn) inherit a rundown country house in provincial France. On arrival they find the locals less welcoming and live in fear of the feral local kids who bully and harass them and now target the American couple on a daily basis before they decide to fight back.

A fairly effective low budget film that harks back to the likes of STRAW DOGS (1971) and even has shades of THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972). Some of the acting is not great from a filmmaker trying to find his feet, but is nevertheless a fairly effective horror thriller and does keep the viewer engaged.

This horror made me blood boil lol!!!!!!!!

[Irishchatter · 8/10 · 25 August 2019]

Honestly this is definitely like realistic horror. I can't imagine how frightening and stressful it would be if a group of young brats trespassed on my property and started attacking me. Also the law wasn't at all helpful to the couple, it made my blood boil when they said "oh well elderly people are too weak and gonna die anyway". I swear I would've punched that policeman face lol. Unfortunately the justice system is kinda corrupted nearly all over the world so this movie is quite relatable in that sense...

Then the satisfying and surprising event came around, the old man began killing the two members of the gang although they had plenty more to go. Seriously man, karma is great when it's shown that way in movies lol.

Anyways it's a pretty good horror movie, go watch it if you are a horror genre fan like myself!!!

A bit too farcicle to be considered good

[MG_84 · 4/10 · 6 May 2020]

Offensive tells the story of two passive well-mannered retirees from the United States who emigrate to the French countryside and become vicious guilt-free (and expert) serial killers of a gang of anti-social murderous teenagers and co-conspiring cops.

Does that sound a bit far fetched, even for a horror film? Wait until you see some of the finer plot points.

I'll admit, the film does an excellent job of making us dislike the gang of youths and want the adults being terrorised to unleash a bit karma upon them. It even gives us a little bit of satisfaction when the revenge does finally start, so it's not a bad revenge horror/thriller in that sense; and while it's gory it's not over the top in the way that we've seen in many "torture porn" films over the years.

The problem is, it's all a bit too ridiculous even if our belief is suspended to the maximum amount. There are just too many absurd events and explanations within a short space of time, intersected with some extreme murders, for it to eventually become a bit of a chore and thereby preventing it from being as good as the likes of Ils (aka Them).

Perhaps it suffers from the fact that, unlike most horror films, this story has a greater sense of reality since most people have been in a situation where they've felt or been intimidated and harrassed by a group of people, such as those seen in the film, making it more difficult to forgive the unrealistic elements like we can with films containing immortal masked killers.

If you like revenge films then you'll probably enjoy this to some degree, but you may find it difficult to love due to how farcical some of it is.

10/10

[oddrod-83785 · 10/10 · 23 August 2020]

First saw it on the Horror Channel and didn't expect much but for a low-budget Indy film it was very good. I'd recommend if you're looking for a couple of hours' escapism.

Nasty, Shabby

[silvio-mitsubishi · 3/10 · 31 August 2019]

This film trades on every crass cliche available: clearly corrupt police, cowardly French, heroic Americans, entire communities ignoring or turning their backs on persistent anti-social behaviour. This requires the local municipality to be both a tiny village and a moderate-sized town, none of the teenagers to have parents or siblings, all the adults to be isolated and vulnerable, and mobile phones to be conspicuous in every scene but never even looked at for evidence by the police.

There appear to be ideas of some local resistance - a burly man who invokes silence as he walks past, a neighbour willing to talk to Bernard, an English teacher whose only role seems to be to explain why an elderly Frenchman has a few words of English - but these simply disappear as arbitrarily as they appear.

The script is written without a thought to real life: a police officer shows photographs of youths and asks "Have you seen these young people?". He gets an unhelpful reply, to which he says "Come on! It is only a week since you assaulted one of them". Why ask, then? Even the assault was alleged to have taken place while several youths were filming an elderly man being tormented by other young people, yet not one had a still or video of the man assaulting anybody?

The man is seemingly able to dig graves for two people in one night, but leave the ground perfectly flat and looking undisturbed. The youths take time to uproot garden plants but leave a classic car untouched on several occasions. The protagonist has his car shipped to France but no obvious furniture. He moves into an isolated farmhouse before he has anything but the suitcases he and his wife carry, rather than book into a hotel until they can make the house secure and habitable.

I had the feeling of a film created by imagining a few killings and then throwing random conversations in between. The leader of the gang is first to die but, rather than take stock and rethink their behaviour, progressively weaker youths go to meet their deaths too. The justifications the protagonist offers his wife are reminiscent of Death Wish - the victims are subhuman and deserve no better. There is no redemptive element to this film at all. Even the English lead actor feigns a US accent, presumably with a view to sales territory. Fail at every level.

If you push people too far... you have to expect consequences.

[alistairc_2000 · 10/10 · 26 August 2019]

I have been waiting so long to see this movie. I wanted it on blu ray. I wanted it at the pictures. Nothing. The trail had gone totally cold. I even got into contact on FB. I gave up. I noticed that your movie was playing on the Sunday on the Horror Channel in the UK.

I hoped would be my movie of the year and it did not disappoint. It is a well measured movie which superbly character build up, so that you care about the characters. Most films skirt over this and it was so good that I felt it was akin to Quentin Tarantino's excellent new movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Then we get the first sighting of the annoying youths. It sets the scene and I knew then they would be just as horrible as they were going to be. Okay I had watched the trailer. So I sort of knew what was going to happen.

Things come to a head and then the revenge part of the movie ensues.

I was totally blown away. An hour to set and hour to do the deeds. The time flew by when I was watching it. 2 hours and 10 minutes. It was just the right length.

I realise that some of the brutality is aimed at young adults and this is why it is probably has not got a release. Though now we have the joy of a TV release that must mean that there is the possibility of a physical media release in the form of a blu ray.

Propaganda

[PlasticActor · 1/10 · 8 November 2021]

From the Hollywood Mafia - more hoaxing to convince brainwash you that their product over the last 70 years has no connection to the drugs, crime, epidemic in everg major American and European city today.

OMG !!!!!

[jhmoondance · 10/10 · 25 August 2019]

An amazing must see stomach churning movie with excellent actors all playing believable roles! I scarcely breathed throught the whole film! No good if you are of a sensitive position as there are some extremely harrowing moments n very disturbing scenes but it's definitely up there in my top 10 movies of all time. Brilliant!

Stick with it

[neil-shrubb · 8/10 · 25 April 2021]

Initially a hate letter to the French, with some questionable acting and camera work, this turns into a DeathWishStrawDogs blood fest that will make you glad you stuck with it. Interestingly although I'm against the death penalty, I would also really enjoy killing the teenagers in this movie.

One of the best finds in years!

[AndreanDatura · 10/10 · 7 January 2021]

Well, there was I surfacing on the internet, as I do, whilst flicking TV channels and I came across this movie. I knew nothing about it or the premise of the storyline. Let's just say the laptop was snapped shut as I got drawn into this tense film. I shall add nothing more to what other reviewers here have already said. Just sit back and 'enjoy'.

Great film

[englishchristopher · 10/10 · 23 August 2020]

What a great horror film. Just seen it on Horror Channel. A gripping two hours and highly recommended.

Not What I Was Expecting !

[carolynocean · 9/10 · 30 April 2022]

This was a great film. I thought at the beginning that it was going to be a bit boring..... I was wrong there .

A good story , well written and directed , and some pretty gory full on scenes !

It just goes to show what people are capeable of, if pushed too far.

I highly recommend this one , a deserved high rating .