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Directed by Matthias Hoene. Starring Jamie Dornan, Nora – Jane Noone, Sebastian Knapp, Lois Winstone, Sadie Frost, Ingrid Pitt. Horror – Vampire. Running time 84 Minutes. Certificate : 18

Release Date 13th September 2010

Beyond The Rave is the “glorious” return of Hammer, it tells the story of Ed, a soldier due out to Iraq the following day, who on his last night in the country, tracks down his ex-girlfriend Jen at a rave in a forest. Finding her he also discovers that the hosts are far from human and have set it all up in an attempt to create a mass execution to feed their blood lust... Oh dear....

Hammer films was something that was before my time as a horror fan but I also understand they had a glorious past, creating many classics along the way including Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy and BTR is their return to their horror film roots. And on the evidence of what I have just watched, I wished they had never ever picked up on this one.

Beyond The Rave is a joint collaboration with Pure Grass Films and tells the story of Ed, a soldier who is being sent off to Iraq the following morning and tonight is his last night of freedom. Catching up with his mate Necro (as if you would be called that) they head off out to a rave in the countryside. Desperate to catch up with his ex girlfriend Jen, he finally finds her and it develops into an argument. We then discover that the “rave” has been organised by a gang of vampires, how or why they are in the English countryside is never explained, make it up as you go along, I had to...

As the rave progresses, the gang of vampires then hatch their evil plan, to contain and trap the revellers and slowly proceed to gas them and then drain them of their blood. Donning gas masks and sealing the building, they manage to seal in all the revellers however why has no one asked the question, why would a vampire need a gas mask if they are immortal? Surely this is a massive big huge hole in the plot, it just does not make any sense at all. Ed and Jen manage to escape, as does Necro who ends up meeting one of the vampires “Lillith” who attempts to seduce him.

Are you still awake?? Good, I will carry on...

Ed and Jen manage to escape to a bunker with Malech, the lead vampire, and the gang in pursuit who then send in Necro after they become trapped. In one of the few script highlights, Necros final comments questioning wether you would rather choose the life you had or the immortality of a vampire, and verbally firing back at Ed when he questions how his friend would want to be a vampire and kill innocent people to which he asks him in return, you are going off to war, it’s only what you will be doing too.

So why did it only get 2 measly stars then, if it’s British, it’s modern, it has vampires in it and a great soundtrack. Put simply, it’s just awful...

Its few redeeming features are that I found Eds character to be believable, knowing what faces him he goes and enjoys his freedom and tries to make amends with his ex, I also found Jen very likeable, distressed by his decision to go off and fight just to try and maintain a family tradition, choosing this over being with her. But the rest of the cast I felt nothing for, nothing about their personalities made any of them likeable. Some of the kills are very good, there is no shortage of the red stuff and some of the deaths are very inventive.

However what this doesn’t excuse is the terrible script, the poor acting, the soundtrack that just plays out like one continuous dance music tune, only ending once the truth about the vampire gang is discovered and switches to a more industrial style which is more in keeping with the tone of the film. Sebastian Knapps’ portrayal of Malech, the lead vampire is probably the most pathetic vampire I have ever seen, I feel I may be more scared watching Twilight than seeing this, he plays the role like a posh schoolboy as opposed to a supposedly evil creature.

But this doesn’t even touch my main gripe of this “film” and I use that word very loosely. BTR was initially shown live on the internet, in conjunction with Myspace as 20 x 4 minute clips, each one telling the next part of the story. This is all well and fine but what they have managed to do with the DVD release is put each part together as a whole film and then left all the individual breaks still in it. So you get to see four minutes of the film and then it goes off to a 20 odd second clip of dance music and if I hear the words “play with me” one more time I think i’m going to scream. Is it beyond the abilities of the people editing this to play the whole thing as a complete film, just as you are getting into it, it starts up again, no variation in the music, just the same snippet of music, visuals and audio. This totally and utterly ruined the whole experience for me, why oh why could each clip not just have been edited together instead of spoiling it. I get it’s a series, I understand that but surely a small bit of text on screen that just stated “Ep. 01”, “Ep. 02” etc would have been better.

Where this also fails is in four minute snippets you can not cram in much action, when the chases and kills do take place they can be very good but then it cuts away to that interlude and when you come back we are with someone else in the film.

I would not advise anyone to go out and buy this, there is so little on offer that the whole viewing experience isn’t worth wasting your time on for the sake of the few good parts that do exist. Not even short cameos by Ingrid Pitt and Sadie Frost can give this any credibility. BTR is not a worthwhile release, maybe it worked well on the internet two years ago but on disc it is a poorly written, badly acted shambles, made worse by the fact it doesn’t flow, four minute clips are not enough for anything of any true merit to take place and by the time you have heard the twenty musical interludes you will have well and truly had enough.

Dead Set showed what could be done as a British horror that added the sum of its parts to make a whole, this sorry excuse of a film doesn’t even do that. As for Hammer, I just hope that what they set their name to next is better than this, and to be honest, it has to be. Then again when you see that one of those films is Let Me In I don’t hold out much hope.

There’s lots of good vampire films out there, go back and dig out some of the Hammer classics if need be but give this one a wide berth.

Disc Extras : Making of features(not interested), Character Interviews (not interested), Deleted scenes (nothing of any extra value) but in a remarkable twist of fortune, there is an Episode 21 clip which shows Lillith, Necro and Leopold (played by a fantastic Trevor Byfield) after they escape from the rave. Turning up at a hotel, the owners are initially reluctant to let them in but eventually choose to do so and this documents Necros first kill as a vampire. This has a longer run time than the individual clips and allows more time for the story to unwind and the characters to be developed, charting Necros reluctance to attack despite Lilliths insistence that he needs to feed. This says it all about BTR when the additional scene not used in the film is actually better than the film itself. This additional scene is worth one of the two stars alone.

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