Paul Andrew Williams' first directorial feature London to Brighton generated a ripple of excitement amongst critics, so anticipation must have been high for his second film. However, after his stylish indie thriller debut, he followed it up with a far more tongue-in-cheek affair in the shape of the blackly comic and very violent The Cottage. And unfortunately, it isn't very good.
The Cottage is cures with being a comic horror film that is neither funny nor scary, even though it desperately wants and needs to be both. The plot follows brothers David and Peter as they kidnap mob boss Arnie's daughter Tracey and hold her hostage in the titular cottage in the countryside whilst they await the delivery of their ransom. Things unexpectedly change direction half way through, when Tracey escapes, abducts Peter and drags him to a nearby farmhouse, only to encounter a disfigured serial killer called the Farmer, resulting in a spectacularly bloody gore-fest for the second half of the film.
None of it really works, because tonally it's a mess. The first half wants to be a spoof of the sort of crime thriller that Williams made with London to Brighton, but the unsophisticated comic dialogue, which includes such clumsy gags as Peter's fear of moths and Tracey turning out to be incredibly foul mouthed, falls flat. If Williams was aiming for satire, he instead hit farce, and good farce is very elusive indeed. The poor characterisation doesn't help, with David, Peter, Tracey, and Arnie's idiot son Andrew all capable of being summed up in a single line, or even a single word. "Idiot", for example. Casting Reece Shearsmith as Peter doesn't help, since it inadvertently invites comparisons with Inside No. 9 (which has done precisely this sort of thing, but much better), making one wish that he had been allowed to write the screenplay instead of Williams.
The second half is even worse. After briefly paying homage to Straw Dogs with a creepy village scene that contains a cameo from horror favourite Doug Bradley, the story then turns into a spoof of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But whilst the would-be humorous dialogue suggests that Williams wanted this to be a satire on slasher horror films featuring disfigured, mute unstoppable killers and the sort of mindless gore that spawns entire franchises of increasingly dire sequels, it instead just ends up looking like a cheap imitation of one.
If Williams' scrip-writing is to blame for the fact that the jokes aren't very funny, then his direction is to blame for the fact that the horror isn't scary. The gore and the special effects work well enough, but there's no suspense, no terror, no shocks; "jump scares" are often dismissed as lazy, but frankly The Cottage would have benefitted from a couple. It doesn't help either that the make-up used to realise the Farmer's facial scars is awful, resembling nothing more than cheap latex make-up leftovers from aging genre television. The film is further undermined by Laura Rossi's ill-judged soundtrack, which right from the opening credits invokes the spirit of Tim Burton to create an atmosphere of tediously wacky horror.
The cast is wasted: the aforementioned Shearsmith is well-cast as the twitchy, reluctant kidnapper Peter, but Andy Serkis plays the role of David far too straight, Jennifer Ellison's Tracey is memorable only for her expletives, and the rest of the actors' are burdened with entirely forgettable roles. Quite how Steven Berkoff was convinced to take the role of Arnie is anyone's guess, but then he's barely in it. Williams has since done better received work, so perhaps after the well-received London to Brighton The Cottage is just the cinematic equivalent of a difficult second album. But it certainly is very disappointing.
The Cottage is cures with being a comic horror film that is neither funny nor scary, even though it desperately wants and needs to be both. The plot follows brothers David and Peter as they kidnap mob boss Arnie's daughter Tracey and hold her hostage in the titular cottage in the countryside whilst they await the delivery of their ransom. Things unexpectedly change direction half way through, when Tracey escapes, abducts Peter and drags him to a nearby farmhouse, only to encounter a disfigured serial killer called the Farmer, resulting in a spectacularly bloody gore-fest for the second half of the film.
None of it really works, because tonally it's a mess. The first half wants to be a spoof of the sort of crime thriller that Williams made with London to Brighton, but the unsophisticated comic dialogue, which includes such clumsy gags as Peter's fear of moths and Tracey turning out to be incredibly foul mouthed, falls flat. If Williams was aiming for satire, he instead hit farce, and good farce is very elusive indeed. The poor characterisation doesn't help, with David, Peter, Tracey, and Arnie's idiot son Andrew all capable of being summed up in a single line, or even a single word. "Idiot", for example. Casting Reece Shearsmith as Peter doesn't help, since it inadvertently invites comparisons with Inside No. 9 (which has done precisely this sort of thing, but much better), making one wish that he had been allowed to write the screenplay instead of Williams.
The second half is even worse. After briefly paying homage to Straw Dogs with a creepy village scene that contains a cameo from horror favourite Doug Bradley, the story then turns into a spoof of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But whilst the would-be humorous dialogue suggests that Williams wanted this to be a satire on slasher horror films featuring disfigured, mute unstoppable killers and the sort of mindless gore that spawns entire franchises of increasingly dire sequels, it instead just ends up looking like a cheap imitation of one.
If Williams' scrip-writing is to blame for the fact that the jokes aren't very funny, then his direction is to blame for the fact that the horror isn't scary. The gore and the special effects work well enough, but there's no suspense, no terror, no shocks; "jump scares" are often dismissed as lazy, but frankly The Cottage would have benefitted from a couple. It doesn't help either that the make-up used to realise the Farmer's facial scars is awful, resembling nothing more than cheap latex make-up leftovers from aging genre television. The film is further undermined by Laura Rossi's ill-judged soundtrack, which right from the opening credits invokes the spirit of Tim Burton to create an atmosphere of tediously wacky horror.
The cast is wasted: the aforementioned Shearsmith is well-cast as the twitchy, reluctant kidnapper Peter, but Andy Serkis plays the role of David far too straight, Jennifer Ellison's Tracey is memorable only for her expletives, and the rest of the actors' are burdened with entirely forgettable roles. Quite how Steven Berkoff was convinced to take the role of Arnie is anyone's guess, but then he's barely in it. Williams has since done better received work, so perhaps after the well-received London to Brighton The Cottage is just the cinematic equivalent of a difficult second album. But it certainly is very disappointing.