The Cottage starts as bickering brother's David (Andy Serkis) & Peter (Reece Shearsmith) pull up outside an isolated cottage deep in the English countryside, there they take young feisty blonde babe Tracey (Jennifer Ellison) whom they have kidnapped inside. They phone her rich stepfather & demand money for Tracey's safe return, unfortunately the plan goes wrong & the third member of the gang Andrew (Steven O'Donnell) is followed & leads Tracey's stepfather's men right to the cottage. If things weren't complicated enough a sadistic psycho serial killing farmer (Dave Legeno) who decides to join in the fun &, well, kill everyone...
This British production was written & directed by Paul Andrew Williams & is a rather uneven but often quite entertaining horror crime comedy caper with a certain likable charm. The Cottage starts off like one of those British crime flicks like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) with two bumbling kidnappers trying to get some ransom money for the rather hot Tracey but just keep getting deeper into trouble as things escalate & their plans go wrong, this is entertaining in itself although rather simplistic. Then about halfway though The Cottage switches genres completely to some British version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) as some deformed mutant hick starts killing off the city folk & it's this part of the film which disappoints the most. There's no explanations or reasons given to anything like who the farmer is, how did he manage to maintain a farmhouse by his mutant self, how did he manage to kill so many people & get away with it, why did he kill so many people, why only kill certain character's & not other's & if the villagers knew what was going on why didn't they call the police? Some sort of explanation would have been nice, anything would have done. The ending is also very frustrating as the film just stops suddenly rather than finishing. Having said that the pace is good, it's fun, it entertains & I loved Jennifer Ellison's foul mouthed Scouse character who just had me in stitches with some of the things she said & just as importantly how she said it. Overall The Cottage has it's moments & isn't a terrible film but ultimately it left me unsatisfied & there's nothing of any real substance here, good for a one time watch & a bit of a laugh but not something I would want to see again anytime soon.
I watched The Cottage on DVD last night & also watched the 'deleted scenes' section & some story was actually cut including what happened to the two Chinese guy's although I don't think these scenes would have made much difference. The gore wasn't as excessive as I had hoped, there's some guts, some blood splatter, some decapitated heads, a head cut in two with a shovel, a sliced in half foot, a pick axe through a leg a slit throat. The killer farmer doesn't look much different than any other backwoods inbred psycho from these sorts of films.
With a supposed budget of about £2,500,000 The Cottage is well made although judging by the audio commentary on the DVD it was shot very quickly. Filmed in Yorkshire here in the UK & on the Isle of Man. The acting is good by some good character actor's although I really liked Jennifer Ellison here & it's shame she doesn't get more screen time actually, actually I never expected to say this but I think she's probably the best thing about The Cottage.
The Cottage is a pretty fun British comedy crime horror caper that entertains but ultimately doesn't really satisfy on any other than a basic fun sort of level, overall not too bad but still somewhat disappointing.
This British production was written & directed by Paul Andrew Williams & is a rather uneven but often quite entertaining horror crime comedy caper with a certain likable charm. The Cottage starts off like one of those British crime flicks like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) with two bumbling kidnappers trying to get some ransom money for the rather hot Tracey but just keep getting deeper into trouble as things escalate & their plans go wrong, this is entertaining in itself although rather simplistic. Then about halfway though The Cottage switches genres completely to some British version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) as some deformed mutant hick starts killing off the city folk & it's this part of the film which disappoints the most. There's no explanations or reasons given to anything like who the farmer is, how did he manage to maintain a farmhouse by his mutant self, how did he manage to kill so many people & get away with it, why did he kill so many people, why only kill certain character's & not other's & if the villagers knew what was going on why didn't they call the police? Some sort of explanation would have been nice, anything would have done. The ending is also very frustrating as the film just stops suddenly rather than finishing. Having said that the pace is good, it's fun, it entertains & I loved Jennifer Ellison's foul mouthed Scouse character who just had me in stitches with some of the things she said & just as importantly how she said it. Overall The Cottage has it's moments & isn't a terrible film but ultimately it left me unsatisfied & there's nothing of any real substance here, good for a one time watch & a bit of a laugh but not something I would want to see again anytime soon.
I watched The Cottage on DVD last night & also watched the 'deleted scenes' section & some story was actually cut including what happened to the two Chinese guy's although I don't think these scenes would have made much difference. The gore wasn't as excessive as I had hoped, there's some guts, some blood splatter, some decapitated heads, a head cut in two with a shovel, a sliced in half foot, a pick axe through a leg a slit throat. The killer farmer doesn't look much different than any other backwoods inbred psycho from these sorts of films.
With a supposed budget of about £2,500,000 The Cottage is well made although judging by the audio commentary on the DVD it was shot very quickly. Filmed in Yorkshire here in the UK & on the Isle of Man. The acting is good by some good character actor's although I really liked Jennifer Ellison here & it's shame she doesn't get more screen time actually, actually I never expected to say this but I think she's probably the best thing about The Cottage.
The Cottage is a pretty fun British comedy crime horror caper that entertains but ultimately doesn't really satisfy on any other than a basic fun sort of level, overall not too bad but still somewhat disappointing.