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[Basement]
Plot:Returning from an anti-war demo, the chaos of horror ensues when stoner Gary (Danny Dyer - Severance), quiet and insular Sarah (Kierston Wareing – Fish Tank), vain Saffron (Lois Winstone – Beyond The Rave), posh Pru (Emily Beecham – 28 Weeks Later) and Pru's arrogant boyfriend Derek (Jimi Mistry - RocknRolla) stop in the country. When Derek and the flirtatious Saffron find an unexplained metal hatch in the middle of the forest, curiosity wins and they decide to explore inside. Searching for their missing friends, Gary, Pru and Sarah are forced to follow, but the hatch locks behind them, and the shadows that lurk in the darkness force the whole group to run for their lives... In this fight of good versus evil - only the most evil will survive.
Cast:Danny Dyer,
Kierston Wareing,
Lois Winstone,
Emily Beecham,
Jimi Mistry.
My Thoughts:Really now?
Review:"Basement" is a UK horror pic which pretends to offer up some gripping, twisted, spooky tale of evil lurking in the woods. An evil which traps a group of young brits inside an underground hatch in the woods. But the reality is, the movie is a total trojan horse for socio-political thrillerness disguised as a horror film. The movie follows a group of young people who are just returning from an anti-war protest. This film is set in current times, so the war being protested is of course the ever-so unpopular Iraq war.
The group decides to stop in the woods, or what they call in Britain..."the country", so they can do the usual smoke/sex thing. But their curiosity gets the better of them when they discover an underground tunnel system of sorts. Once they enter, they're mysteriously locked in, and then chaos ensues. Well not really, what really ensues is the usual paranoid/delusional/claustrophobic horror scene. Yes, this is one of those horror films where a group of seemingly tight-knit people, are easily torn apart and ripped asunder by their situation.
It never ceases to amaze me in movies like this how being trapped somewhere...particularly underground, can cause people to turn on each other with such quickness. Thus, whatever is chasing them has to do very little if anything, to harm them. The human beings, do the work for it. This movie operates on that same premise, but how many times do we have to see this plot line play out before it becomes stale? American and European horror alike, have done it so many times. At some point, it becomes too predictable to enjoy. You just know at some point, between the natural "every person for themselves mentality", and the fear that someone in the group is "in on it", and the fear that they'll all be trapped forever...that the group of young people will flip their proverbial lids, and start killing each other.
Or trying to. So how is the viewer supposed to sit back, and with great anticipation...excitedly await such a fate for a film? That's the problem with "Basement". The movie tries to be coy, and clever with it's ultimate finale, but it doesn't work. And as much as I wanted to believe the film would hold something deeper, or save some major impact for the end reveal, I just knew I'd be disappointed with the end result, when everything fell into place exactly like I thought it would.
Danny Dyer is indeed become a good actor for movies based out of Britain, but this film doesn't really work for him. His character has depth, but the depth is put on hold once the movie attempts to kick into horror mode. Then his depth is smashed to bits by typical teen cliches, young people stupidity, and all that good (but highly predictable)shit the filmmakers believe us in the 18-35 demo pay to see. It would've been nice if Danny's character had gotten to be the focal point of this film...like he was at the very start.
But instead, they kill the character by turning him from a complex anti-war protestor, to a whiny stoner who's complaining and constant pity-me attitude ruins any sympathy you started out having for him. As for the good old-fashioned blood, gore, and violence...this film has none of it. It's all sacrificed for psychological scares which aren't very psychological, or well-done at all for that matter. Gotta give the filmmakers props on the ending though, not only does it serve a fitting end to some terribly-conceived characters, but it has many caviats and undertones which play on some smarter and more mature themes.
Which is where this movie should've been from the get go. Smarter, and more mature. Instead of sacrificing it's great opening 10 minutes for typical bad-teen-slasher nonsense. "Basement" does a few things correct in it's strange and wild attempt to be something new, unexpected, and different. But it follows too many of the old and annoying patterns to quite make it high enough to grab that brass ring.
Positives:Danny's performance is pretty good, his character is also developed well in some areas. Good ending.
Negatives:Danny's character is under-developed and under-used more often than not. The other characters are highly intolerable, the films overall story and attempt at scaring the viewer fall relatively flat all over the place.
Overall:One and a half stars out of four.
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