GORE IN THE STORE
REVIEWS BY FANS FOR FANS
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

Beyond The Rave
Hunter Prey
7th Dimension
Army of the Dead
Splintered
Basement
Meat Grinder
14 Blades
Manson Girl
The Blackout
The Torment
The Torment
(Second Opinion)
Hierro
Psycho - Blu-Ray
Pet Shop of Horrors
Kaiji:
The Ultimate Gambler
Shelter
Fullmetal Alchemist:
Brotherhood Part 1
The Final
Bubba Ho Tep - Blu-Ray
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Vampire
The Dead
Resurrecting
The Street Walker
The Haunting Of
Molly Hartley
Soul Eater: Part One
Rozen Maiden:
Traumend Vol. One
Bikini Girls On Ice
Diary of a Bad Lad
Satan's Baby Doll
Feast 111
Phobia
A Lizzard in a Woman's Skin
Valhalla Rising
City of the Living Dead
Dorothy
Daybreakers
Daybreakers
(Second Opinion)
Harpoon: The Reykjavik Whale
Watching Massacre
Harpoon:The Reykjavik Whale
Watching Massacre
(Second Opinion)
Feast 3:The Happy Finnish
Raging Phoenix
His Name Was Jason
Left Bank
Ju-On: White Ghost/White Ghost
Spiral
Ghost Machine
Stag Night
Bitch Slap
The Descent 2
The Descent 2-Second opinion
Dance of The Dead
Henry Lee Lucas: Serial Killer
House Of The Devil
The Twilight Saga
New Moon
Salvage
Salvage-Second opinion
Dread
The Haunted World of
El Superbeasto
Saw VI
The Horseman
Triangle-Second opinion
Triangle
Cabin Fever 2-Third opinion
Cabin Fever 2-Second opinion
Cabin Fever 2
Stan Helsing
Pandorum
Pandorum-Second opinion
Open Graves
Paranormal Activity
Growth
Growth-Second opinion
Train
Antichrist
Wrong Turn 3
Coffin Rock
Orphan
Sorority Row
Drag Me to Hell
Staunton Hill
Summer Moon
Driftwood
Messengers 2

 

Directed by Lawrence Gough. Starring Neve McIntosh, Shaun Dooley, Linzey Cocker, Dean Andrews. Horror, UK, 81 min.

DVD release date 22nd March 2010 - £12.99 BUY NOW.

Jodie (Linzey Cocker) is dropped off by her father on Christmas Eve to spend the holiday with her estranged mother Beth (Neve Macintosh). Unfortunately because they’re early arriving, Jodie accidentally walks in on her mother in a rather compromising position with one night stand Kieran (Shaun Dooley, familiar to genre fans from Eden Lake). Appalled, Jodie runs to the neighbour over the close and refuses to return.

The set-up of a classic British kitchen sink drama is violently interrupted by the arrival of black clad soldiers who force Beth and Kieran into her house at gunpoint. Mother and daughter are trapped on opposite sides of the street. The confused and terrified Beth and Kieran then see the soldiers confront and kill an Asian neighbour. Kieran is convinced they are caught up in an Al-Qaeda attack, Beth protests that the neighbour Mr Sharma was a doctor, “they’re always doctors” is Kieran’s reply. On TV they see a report of a triple murder on a nearby beach where a shipping container has been washed ashore. Before they can gather more information, the electricity is shut off, landlines disconnected and mobile signals blocked.

To say anymore about Salvage’s plot would be a shame, however it’s a safe bet that any seasoned genre fan will be sitting with a raised eyebrow thinking “bollocks to Al-Qaeda”; indeed the gradual reveal of what exactly has descended on this suburban Wirral cul-de-sac is one of Salvage’s key pleasures. As the situation deteriorates, Beth focuses on trying to get to her daughter across the close. This 15 yards of tarmac will seem like 15 miles, as this cosy modern housing estate becomes a blood soaked war-zone.

Salvage is one of a number of modern films examining the effects of catastrophic events on a macroscopic scale. Where the traditional disaster-movie favours a panorama of destruction (as in 2012), films like Signs and Right At Your Door show events from the point of view of the uncomprehending person in the street and refuse to pull back to offer a strategic view of events. The result is to leave the audience unbalanced, lacking critical information, and scrambling to piece together events from a limited point of view. Salvage is an excellent addition to this recent trend, bringing a pleasing British flavour to the mix and showing that after the 7/7 attacks on London the British public can be just as twitchy, paranoid and open to manipulation as American characters.

Beyond this Salvage’s key influence is the work of George A. Romero; particularly his 1973 film The Crazies, to which this is a far more fitting homage than the recent by-the-numbers US remake. Like Romero’s film, there is a shocking breakdown of social order in a banal setting that is met with a swift and brutal response from authority.

Salvage director Lawrence Gough and writer Colin O’Donnell keep a tight reign on proceedings, never expanding the story beyond their limited resources. The cast of experienced British TV actors do a terrific job of selling the reality of being caught in terrifying events. The budget may be small, but Salvage delivers the genre goods. These include: a series of well executed scares (and not just of the ‘boo’ sudden loud noise variety); a mounting sense of paranoia; liberal applications of blood and grue (enough to earn the 18 certificate, though not too much to tip in to “splatstick” territory). If you find yourself thinking, “this is like The Crazies on Brookside Close”, that’s because, as the DVD extras reveal, it is Brookside Close.

The end result is a tight (81 minutes, no fat), exciting, scary horror film, and another sign of the renewed vigour for genre films in the UK film industry. Gough and O’Donnell are now trying to get a larger scale British post-apocalypse movie called The Drought off the ground (shades of J.G. Ballard? Hope so). I for one am looking forward to this. In the meantime, make sure and check out Salvage.

Extras on the disc include cast and crew interviews, behind the scenes footage and a commentary track with director Lawrence Gough, writer Colin O’Donnell, producer Alan Pattison, and actor Shaun Dooley. It’s sober and informative stuff, with a lot of detail on just how low budget the production was. Answer: very.

Stuart Barr.

© London FrightFest Ltd. 2000-2010
__________________________________________________________