Plot
A couple of inept brothers decide to
kidnap the daughter of a mobster and hold her to ransom in a desperate
scheme to make some money. So they whisk her away to a remote cottage in the
countryside where they decide to stay low until the money is paid. However
she escapes her bungling captors and heads into the woods. With the brothers
in hot pursuit, all three inadvertently trespass onto the land of a deranged
farmer who is only too quick to put the proverbial lambs to the slaughter.
Review
Oh they don't make comedy horror films
like the British, do they? You can just instantly tell when a film is a
British comedy as the humour is just quintessentially British with plenty of
wit, sarcasm and low key humour which raises chuckles and smirks. We don't
like making things obvious and throwing in loads of silly in-jokes, fart
gags or slapstick. We're masters at laughing at the understated. When I sit down to a Brit
comedy-horror flick, I'm already a
little more entertained and intrigued than I would be watching an American
flick. It's biased as hell but
it's true. It's probably because we don't make that many films in the UK
anymore so that when they do get released, it seems like more of a special
event. You can tell that time, painstaking detail and a lot of love and
affection goes into them simply for the fact that the people involved aren't
just on a conveyor belt of film production like they are in the studios in
the States. The Cottage is the next in a recent wave of comedy horrors from
the UK that have hit the market and comes off as a bit of a cross between
From Dusk Till Dawn and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The film doesn't really get
into horror territory until the second half. The first half of the film is
taken up with the kidnapping and typical "everything going wrong" scenario
in which our team main characters find themselves in. This is where the bulk
of the comedy comes in as the hapless brothers make a complete mess of the
kidnapping and their eventual escape into the countryside. It's only later
in the film where it shifts into more serious horror territory. The gear
change isn't sudden and the anticipation and slow build-up works quite well.
The gags still run but they're not as prevalent. The writers clearly realise
that in order for the horror to work, it must be scary and in order to be
scary, it can't be silly. So the psychotic, disfigured farmer who shows up
isn't silly in the slightest. He's big, brutal and savage and extremely
violent. He's only got one direction and that's full steam ahead so get in
his way and you're screwed. Although the character is played straight, the
kills aren't and there are some right beauties here with a variety of
farming tools being used. The film is pretty gory but like the tone of the
film, it's not meant to be nasty and some of the more creative moments of
goo will have you squirming and laughing in equal measure. But if you've
seen any of the other recent Brit flicks (Severance, Shaun of the
Dead, Doghouse, etc) then you'll know what to expect in the gore stakes.
Andy Serkis has so much more talent than to be stuck as Peter Jackson's
regular motion capture actor and here he demonstrates why he is such a man
in demand. Serkis is always watchable and brings enough tough talking to the
table here to give his character a dark edge but also enough likeability and
affection for his brother that he's somewhat humanised. Reece Shearsmith
plays his feeble brother who is scared of pretty much everything (in
particular he hates moths) to perfection and the two feed off each other
very well with some excellent banter. The bond between them may not be
obvious but throughout the film you really get the sense of brotherly love
and looking out for each other - which obviously doesn't go down too well
with a big assed farmer with a pitchfork after them. Despite the script
dishing out loads of physical abuse throughout the running time to
Shearsmith's character (and boy does this poor bloke go through the ringer),
the problem is that they're supposed to be criminals and we shouldn't be
sympathising with them because they are kidnappers! But even the victims and
the innocents who die aren't very sympathetic. Jennifer Ellison plays Tracy,
the kidnap victim, and apart from displaying a lot of cleavage and swearing
in her horrible Scouse accent every two minutes, she does little else. We
should be rooting for her because she's been kidnapped but as soon as she
opens her mouth and starts swearing, the only thing you want to see is a big
bucket of soap and water being dunked down her mouth! Doug Bradley (the
immortal Pinhead) makes a small cameo here too but the scene is so small,
insignificant and throwaway that I wonder if it was to say "we got a cameo
from Pinhead!"
Verdict
The Cottage isn't the most original
film and it's certainly a bit derivative in places but it's fun and
entertaining throughout. When you're dealing with the subject matter of a
psychotic, disfigured farmer you can't really ask for more than for it to be
a good watch!
