Stars: Martin Freeman, Andy NymanBudget: Unknown
Directed By: Nyman&Dyson
A good old British film written by one of the distinguished league of gentlemen, Jeremy Dyson, also Andy Nyman who also stars. Nyman I had only really ever seen him in dead set, a Charlie Brooker zombie apocalypse film with satyrical elements based around big brother. The film does boasting some of the best practical effects I've seen in a film in a long time too.
It seemed they tried to stay away from CGI as much as possible which is never bad thing when there's usually a choice between not having it or a noticeably bad effect if it used. For the first time in a while since watching horror movies I actually felt a little on edge in some situations,
especially in the first segment with Paul Whitehouse.
The film is an almost anthology with the typical amount of (3) segments to it linked by a last (4th) overarching narrative. Now these are reasonably strong segments
but one thing I will state here before the main review it, to me at least was very roundabout way of getting to a point which I didn't find was told too well through the overarching plot. Dont get me wrong I noticed all the little things alluding to the ending throughout the film, I just thought it was bloated way to tell a story. Though each section of the bloat was a decent enough section on its own. I suppose in this case the sum of the parts were indeed greater than the end!
So lets get on with explaining what happens before as usual I rate this film.
Nyman plays a well known stalwart detective (Phillip Goodman) in proving that ghosts, psychics and pretty much anything that goes bump in the night can be explained by either fraud or misbelief. It is shown early and throughout the film he comes from a background with an abusive father. He is an avid fan and follower of one other skeptical detective from the 70s who mysteriously vanished a few years back.
That is until he receives a mysterious package through the door one day. It contains a VHS tape on that tape is one very aged looking Charles Cameron (the 70s detective) who tells him to meet him at a secret location. He is very sickly and lives in a caravan full of medical equipment in the middle of nowhere. He implores Goodman to investigate three cases that may just change his outlook on things.
The first story is about a security guard/night watchman Tony, played by Whitehouse. It's your typical affair weird things happening in a dark deserted building, freaky ghost kids scaring the shit out of people as they do. The little bastards. It's possibly the best segment and like i said actually caught me off guard too, which I think may have raised the bar of my expectations a bit to high for the rest of the film.
The Second case a teen called Simon Rifkind who seems to have developed an acute OCD and interest in the occult since his ordeal. Where he borrowed his parents car without having passed his lessons. Which as you when you do that accidentally knock someone, or something down with said car while unqualified. That something being a weird demon. It's here we start to get some clues as to whats really going on things that freak Goodman out. Although he still explains them as 'rational' to himself.
The third case in a rich business man Mike Priddle, played by Martin Freeman. In his story he is haunted by an unknown entity while his aged wife (explained they waited for a long time to have a baby) is pregnant. She dies giving birth to a child that has some kind of defect. Goodman keeps seeing things more and more as the story is recounted to him. It ends with the abrupt suicide by shotgun blast to the face of Priddle.
Still not totally convinced just on his shear willpower that everything can be explained he goes to see Cameron again to tell him so. This is where the story takes a weird twist and it's basically always been about Goodman. Cameron rips of a mask revealing he's Priddle, but is he? is all this real? I kind of lost interest here, I had always seen where the film was going story wise anyway. Unfortunately the long winded and round about way they take to get to such, to me at least, a poor conclusion is not worth it. I would have preferred a much more standard ending to the one we actually get.
Will I spoil the ending?
No it's not quite that bad, so it gets a spoiler free pass from THN but it does only garner itself a reasonably weak 2 out of 5 stars with a watch if you really want to see that ending i'm so loathed about lol.
