THE CRITIC-AL LIST
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

The Crazies
Case 39
The Wolfman
Legion
The Lovely Bones
Black Death
Daybreakers
Avatar
The Stepfather
Ninja Assassin
The Descent: Part 2
Amer
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Box
2012
Disney's A Christmas Carol
The Horseman
Solomon Kane
Pandorum
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
District 9
An Education
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra
Orphan
A Perfect Getaway
The Imaginarium Of
Doctor Parnassus
Up
Harry Potter
And The Half-Blood Prince
The Taking of Pelham 123
Transformers
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Antichrist
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Crank: High Voltage
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Let The Right One In
Drag Me To Hell
Race to Witch Mountain
Knowing
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Not Quite Hollywood
Lesbian Vampire Killers
Martyrs
The Children
Surveillance
Watchmen
The Unborn
The International
Friday The 13th
Franklyn
Push
Punisher:War Zone
The Uninvited
Amusement
The Good The Bad And
The Weird
Hush
Underworld
The RIse OF The Lycans
My Bloody Valentine
Bolt
Slumdog Millionaire

Directed by Mark Tonderai. Staring Will Ash, Christine Bottomley and Andreas Wisniewski. Horror, UK, 95 min.

One of the most popular titles shown at our Halloween ICA FrightFest was director Mark Tonderai’s HUSH.  With good reason for, like EDEN LAKE, Tonderai’s subtle terror elaborates on the more horrifically suspenseful themes of a current torn-from-newspaper-headlines plot. Here a bickering couple ends up on the wrong side of a motorway trucker carrying human traffic cargo. It’s a neat premise, well staged by Tonderai for maximum thrills. In fact, when this ace chiller world premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, its cathartic ending had audiences screaming and cheering so enthusiastically it almost blew the roof off the cinema. That was why we tried to secure it for August’s FrightFest but miscommunications meant he had to settle for our Halloween event instead. Basically Zakes (Will Ash) and Beth (Christine Bottomley) are arguing while driving to a party when suddenly the doors of the truck speeding in front fly open to reveal naked girls in cages. Or that’s what Zakes thinks, disbelieved by his girlfriend because she was looking for something on the floor. But so shaken by his vision he follows the truck to a service station for a glimpse inside, where Beth gets abducted by the mysterious maniac driver (Andreas Wisniewski). The twisting cat-and-mouse excitement is wound up to fever pitch as Zakes tries to locate white slave HQ in the deepest countryside suffering everything from police suspicion and crucifixion in the white-knuckle process. Okay, Tonderai’s solid slice of high tension is nothing more than FRIDAY THE 13th goes CONVOY. But the pace never slackens, the plot still retains its grip through a couple of very obvious red herrings and the violence is not that viscerally full-on to cause anyone major off-putting distress. Convincing Ash shines in a virtual one-man show once past the service station kidnap with Tonderai wisely keeping Wisniewski faceless and therefore more threatening. Crisp nighttime photography and a pumping score build towards the scrap metal yard set climax that’s both clever and hilarious, really hitting the spot after a grueling two hours perched on the seat edge.

Alan Jones

© London FrightFest Ltd. 2000-2009
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