(2002)
Dir - Michael J. Bassett
Overall: MEH
Writer/director Michael J. Bassett's debut Deathwatch is an ambitious, somewhat interesting psychological yarn that fumbles a bit too much along its way. Some of the presentation brings it awfully close to B-movie schlock, particularly a good amount of the dialog, the swelling, dramatic musical score that never shuts the fuck up, and how every character routinely screams all of their lines. Set during an exasperatingly cold, wet, and muddy World War I backdrop, some of the macho behavior seems appropriate, but as the movie continues to spiral into more ambiguous terrain, these details become a bit irksome when they probably should not be. Bassett concocts a small handful of creepy moments, (more so earlier on), and he utilizes the modest budget to good enough effect to stage a harsh setting with some brutal battle sequences. Yet a lot of it unfortunately rambles along with a host of underwritten characters, the spooky mystery never picking up a compelling enough momentum.
(2006)
Dir - Christopher Smith
Overall: MEH
There are only a few scant moments of unpredictable humor scattered about Christopher Smith's Severance, another thriller parody that is pretty standard and mediocre. Smith and his co-screenwriter James Moran being rather avid genre fans judging by their filmography, utilize a few too many cliches all around, like loud noises on the soundtrack every time something scary happens and thematic red herrings. On that note, the earlier scenes are far more intriguing than what ultimately transpires, with psychological and supernatural elements introduced, all of which end up being a mere tease. Once we find out what is actually going on and it turns into just another cat and mouse game with some kind of vague military undercurrent, it becomes easy to check out of the story. Tone-wise it is also inconsistent as it plays like a straight slasher movie and borders on torture porn once or twice while still continuing to bust out random gags on the regular. The humor is certainly a preferable ingredient, otherwise it would be generically drab, but it is just not all that memorable of an end result.
(2008)
Dir - James Watkins
Overall: WOOF
You know what is fun, meaning not the fuck fun at all? Getting to know a nice, normal couple on the brink of starting the rest of their lives together who instead meet an entire town full of appalling douchebags who have the worst teenagers ever birthed who proceed to terrorize and murder them for ninety-minutes. Eden Lake, the debut from James Watkins, is the worst kind of torture porn bullshit. It is miserable enough when you are watching a bunch of exaggerated, horror movie-level psychopaths do awful things to people for their own warped reasons. Yet when you change the evil-doers to just a crop of bullies who should have all been drowned right out of the womb and your big finish then is to show that it all comes down from their parents who also should have been drowned right out of the womb, the unrelenting miserableness is just comically obnoxious. It is the same question posed by all of this garbage, being "Who the fuck wants to watch this shit?" Poor Michael Fassbender certainly does not deserve to be here and neither do we. As little Elizabeth Cronin would say, "What a pile of shit!".
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