Reviews

I am new to the films of Darren Ward.

Hearing about the production of this one from online sources, from his production company Giallo Films, I was pleased to see genre favorite Giovanni Lombardo Radice in the cast, playing a slimy gangland boss, and trying to control his mob of bully boys against the competition. Giovanni is well versed in on screen violent films, having carved a career in Italian horrors and thrillers, with the likes of Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead, Umberto Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox, and Michele Soavi's Stage Fright, as well as titles like House by the Edge of the Park and Cannibal Apocalypse. He is clearly enjoying chewing the scenery in Beyond Fury, adding a little camp too, and fully aware of the underlying silliness of it all. He's a butcher, and a thug, and a low-life, but he has style, and wants things done right. This looks a very polished effort from Darren, with real attention to scene setups, editing, scoring, and photography, as well as the expected mind blowing gore effects, which really are wince inducing and realistic, to the point of revulsion.

Darren is clearly totally in love with film, film making, and horror and violence. He has spent the last 20 years putting together movies that wallow in as much blood and gore as possible, and the mafia style gangland storylines are his way of getting that violence on the screen. His first major effort, Sudden Fury - 1997, had a sadly unwell David Warbeck in the lead as chief villain, who again camped up the scenes of torture and violence to make them almost parody. The rest of the acting talent from that film were largely embarassingly awful, with some of the naffest dialogue and delivery I've ever seen. Thankfully, moving on with better facilities, more money and a better story, 2010's A Day of Violence was Darren's follow up title. A much pacier and more believable tale of a debt collector for loan sharks, striking it lucky in finding a stash of £100,000 on a job, but not so lucky when he decides to keep it, and has to fight his own gangland bosses who are unaware he has double-crossed them.

Luckily, we had a return from Giovanni Lombardo Radice again in this film, playing a burned out drug lord, reduced to a pitiful existence in a rancid flat, who finally reaches his comeuppance at the hands of Mitchell - the nearest thing to a hero in the piece.

Darren's films are certainly not going to be for everybody. Fans of The Krays style violence in British gangland thrillers, or Get Carter/Villain style thuggery, won't be prepared for the level of nastiness seen in this trilogy. Yes, there are juicy bullet hits and slit throats of course, but that is just the start of it. Here we have anything from hammer blows and saws, blowtorches, and garden shears, all deployed on the most sensitive body parts imaginable, in lingering close up, and accompanied by the levels of blood you'd expect in a Sam Raimi zombie movie. It's all very well done, but stomach churningly so, the the level of such extremes, that I am very suprised these titles got by with 18 ratings from the BBFC.

Enjoy, but approach with caution.

I can see why this film is either a love or hate movie.

There are those that like it's simple approach and execution, and there are those that just dislike it because it doesn't deliver the expected gore fest they've come to expect, and it doesn't make a lot of sense either.

I'm a bit torn over this film, and wanted to like it more than I do.

THE GOOD:

I was impressed in the simple way it slowly nudged up the tension.

It slowly made you feel more uncomfortable, as the hoodie gang attack lone teachers and pupils after hours at the school. I felt sorry for the teacher who had his career and life ruined by an obnoxious pupil who assaulted him, and then got away with it.

His slow slide into alcoholism and depression was very well portrayed, and the deterioration of his relationship with his daughter was realistic and well acted.

I'm glad the film didn't resort to wall to wall gore to show all the killings. Setting up the threat and then revealing later on the horrific aftermath was much more effective for me.

Too many horrors swamp the viewer with ultra-realistic death scenes nowadays. It isn't shocking any more, and we all know how good make up effects and CGI can be to show a person getting killed, so the impact is lost.

The faceless hoodies were a new scary idea, and how they stalked their victims was well filmed.

THE BAD:

Well, the film takes a big nose-dive once we've reached 75 minutes of good tension building and plot development, and seems to just fizzle out.

There is no resolution at all here, no real motive for the attacks, no members of the gang identified. They just appear to get away with it.

The teacher drives off to the hospital with his wounded daughter. The mother arrives at the school and is wandering around on her own. Most of the other teachers and pupils have been killed off. The two police staff who arrived to investigate are also dead.

THAT'S IT!! END OF FILM.

Quite what this is supposed to mean is a mystery.

I'm wondering if the director and writer felt that today's thoughtless, selfish, and nasty society would just accept that there is no justice, no hope, and no end to today's violence, and therefore the ending was justified as showing - real life . Either that, or simply the money ran out and there was no way to film anything else, so the film was left to stand as it is.

I don't know which, but I think most people will feel cheated here, and end up disliking what is a well made film that just needed a bit more work to make it excellent.

The 1973 original was just a modest TV movie.

It had style, great atmosphere, some good scares, was well acted and paced, and had the nastiest little creatures hiding in the darkness that popped out every now and then to make you jump. That was enough to make it a memorable title, and it became one of the best TV movies ever. Sadly it is rarely if ever shown now, and certainly not on British television.

40 years later, and we now have this 25 million dollar Hollywood remake, determined it seems to do nearly everything wrong.

Despite being handsomely produced, with impeccable art direction, this flat film is all style and no suspense.

An interesting prologue sets up the story of the previous tenant of the house trying to appease some hidden presence living in the basement behind the fireplace. He fails, and loses his own life and his son's in the process.

Jump to the present day and in move a new couple, Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes, unaware of the house history. Guy is usually such a good actor, but here seems dull and uninterested in the script, and Katie is equally lack lustre in her performance.

Along with them is Guy's displaced daughter, who is shunted between her mother and father like an unwanted parcel. She offers the only interesting performance in the entire film.( It has to be said that Bailee Madison playing Sally is excellent in her part and acts everyone else off the screen.)

Hearing strange voices calling out her name, she finds the hidden fire grill in the basement and foolishly loosens the securing bolts covering it , hoping to free whoever is inside. Dire warnings follow from the house maintenance man who wants to lock the hidden room up again, but despite his efforts, something breaks loose through the grill that night.

At first, before they are seen, Sally thinks they are her friends wanting to play, but when night falls and they break into her room and turn off the lights,she realises their true horror, and spends the rest of the running time trying to convince her disbelieving Dad and girlfriend what is happening.

Admittedly, at this point the film does offer a few creepy scenes where the creatures are half glimpsed crawling along under beds and half hidden in shadows etc. Once fully revealed however, they are just another CGI marvel - reasonable unpleasant to look at, and quite vicious and nasty in how they screech and move about, but to be honest they are too small to do any real harm to anyone.

Even during their multiple attacks on the child, she is able to push them off quite easily, and squash a few by bashing them with her camera or between the shelves of a bookcase.

Unfortunately, the last half hour of the picture seems to fall to pieces.

Credibility is stretched to breaking point when nobody believes anything is wrong in the house. Sally shows obvious signs of being mauled in various attacks, particularly when the housekeeper discovers her screaming in the bath with a ripped and bloodied shower curtain covering her, and a house full of dinner guests notice nothing unusual whilst Sally tries to fight off and photograph a demon hidden under the table. Even her own Father does nothing after finding Sally has wrecked the library in a battle with a hoard of the demons jumping up and ripping at her clothes.

The climax, with Sally being dragged down into the basement where she will become one of the demons, is poorly handled and shows little suspense, and a ridiculous ending has Katie pulled down instead - her disappearance is then shrugged off so casually, with no attempt to free her, as if it was all for nothing.

This could have been really good with the right approach, but this is a big budget misfire.