The kid's are not alright... Eden Lake (James Watkins 2008)

I've finally got around to seeing this compelling but gruelling film, described by The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw as 'seriously bloody horrible' but also as 'the best British horror film in years' (see here for his excellent review). It is one of those rare films that had me literally squirming in my seat in discomfort, exacerbated by the fact that it offers none of the usual palliatives associated with the genre, instead remaining horrifyingly grim right up to the final credits. The film's protagonists Steve (the brilliant Michael Fassbender) and Jenny (Kelly Reilly) escape the city for a camping weekend beside a nostalgically remembered wooded lake (although the fact that it is an ex-quarry signals a note of incipient darkness). They arrive to find that developers are turning it into 'Eden Lake', a gated community of expensive lakeside properties; however, they find a gap in the imposing security fence and drive down to the lakeshore in Steve's 4x4 Jeep. As they relax by the water their idyll is undermined by the presence of a group of rowdy youths whose loud music and aggressive dog provoke Steve into remonstrating with them. This rapidly turns into a confrontation that escalates as the film progresses, setting in motion the chain of events that lead to its bleak denoument. Bradshaw argues that 'the confrontation here isn't about race and not even exclusively about class; it's not about townies and hillbillies, or blacks and whites, or yuppies and chavs. At bottom, it's about older people and the young: a gang of feral children who are as powerful as adults'. I'm not entirely sure that I agree. Yes, there is no doubt that the film is about the power of children but class, as Bradshaw acknowledges, does play an important role here. Steve and Jenny are resolutely middle class while the children (and their parents) are portrayed as wealthy 'chavs' (see Imogen Tyler's article 'Chav Scum: The Politics of Social Class in Contemporary Britain' here). These parents are the ones that we hear being blamed for the behaviour of their children as we listen to a Radio 4 broadcast (itself a marker of class) over the opening credits, as Steve and Jenny drive down to 'Eden Lake'. Jenny, as an infant school teacher is figured as their polar opposite, which of course makes events later in the film all the more powerful and shocking. As Bradshaw notes, Eden Lake is not a film that one can 'claim to like in any normal sense' (it is after all incredibly violent and graphic) but it is a visually accomplished film and it maintains an unremitting level of tension throughout. If you are planing a 'staycation' this summer, camping out in some English beauty spot, then maybe wait until you get back before you see this movie..!

Outpost (Steve Barker 2008 UK)

I watched this low-budget British horror film last night on DVD and rather enjoyed it, despite the occasional plot lapses and inexplicable logic. Set in the depths of an Eastern European war zone the film pits a group of mercenaries, led by DC (Ray Stevenson) and questing 'company' scientist Hunt (Julian Wadham), against a platoon of re-animated (or rather dimension-shifting) Nazi soldiers. The object of Hunt's quest is a device, hidden deep in an SS bunker, that supposedly allows for the merging of the four dimensions of matter (Einstein is checklisted in Hunt's exposition); once the antiquated machine is discovered he duly reports back to his financial masters who prepare to send in a team to recover it. As the mercenaries become aware of the presence of the Nazi soldiers they are slowly picked off until only DC, Hunt, Jordan (Paul Blair) and Prior (Richard Brake) remain. In a sequence reminiscent of David Fincher's Alien 3 (1992), Jordan, Prior and DC lure the Nazi 'zombies' into the range of the machine just as Hunt manages to re-start it. Firing a pulse that works to 'contain' the Nazis within their original dimension they appear to have an opportunity to escape; however, power to the machine fails and with it, apparently, their chance of survival... The strength of this film lies in the atmosphere created in the subterranean space of the bunker, which benefits from the sparing use of digital special effects. The Nazi soldiers are particularly effective given their visual simplicity, the filmmakers relying on showing less rather than more. The performances are all pretty decent although the accents have a tendency to wander somewhat with DC covering a broad range of nationalities. The actors convey the sense of threat and fear effectively with the 'Breather' (Johnny Meres) suitably eerie and chilling. This isn't the most original claustrophobic horror and the debt to movies like Alien (Ridley Scott 1979), The Fog (John Carpenter 1980) and The Keep (Michael Mann 1983) is clear, as is the potential comparison with a film like Neil Marshall's Dog Soldiers (2002) or his more recent The Descent (2005); nonetheless it works. If it is true that horror films have a tendency to reflect the concerns and anxieties of the period in which they are produced, what do these 'threat' films say about the contemporary moment? Certainly, the 'other' appears, as ever in horror, as the more or less invisible and un-knowable, the omnipresent source of danger and terror but are these films, as has been suggested, reflections of a post 9/11 world (as viewed from a Western perspective)? The fear of the dark, the hidden, the unknown, remains, whatever the political context; ultimately, these primordial fears long precede the current 'war on terrror'...