I had no idea at all what this film was about. I saw it on Netflix and on a whim I decided to watch it. I was surprised afterwards with the quite low scores of 24% from Rotten Tomatoes and 4.7/10 from IMDb, especially as this was a film from Conor McMahon, the same director as the British horredy Stitches.
The plot follows closely the relationship between an Irish couple, Sarah and Mark, who are on their way to the countryside to spend a romantic getaway together. Winding down unknown Irish roads, Mark manages to get them lost. The car gets stuck in the mud and the couple is unable to move it. Mark decides to go and look for help while Sarah stays in the car with an unknown presence nearby.
Mark stumbles across the countryside and over a muddy trench to a farm, and finds an unresponsive old man in the kitchen. Mark gets back to the car and finds Sarah, who he leads back to the farm to attempt to help the man. However, when they get there, he attacks them.
***SPOILERS START HERE***
The man is able to bite Mark, although Sarah quickly finds out that he has adverse reactions to light. Using the lights in the house and from her phone, Sarah staves him away for as long as she can until she spots a tractor outside. The almost hypnotic Mark who has been reduced to a babbling mess is tasked with shining a light outside so that Sarah can get to the tractor safely.
Halfway through their daring escape, the light from the house goes out. Sarah is able to get in the tractor although she is attacked by the man (read: vampire) and turns the tractors merciless beams on him, turning him to stone and running the vehicle through him, shattering him completely.
Elated, she drives the tractor up to the door of the house, and grabs Mark from the loft. When he sees the lights, Mark becomes hysterical and shatters them angrily with his fists. He is incapacitated by Sarah, but left vulnerable, another vampire appears from the night. They are chased through the house and Sarah locks them in a bathroom. She finds a ring on Mark’s person, and recalls a conversation where he said that he would never get married.
Mark starts to transform into a vampire and Sarah realises that she must kill him. He bits her finger, and once in a secure space she removes in and uses her blood to lure him into the space. She manages to kill him with lights, and his stone body crumbles in her hands when she touches him.
However, her hardship doesn’t end there. Another vampire starts to chase her through the farm, and although she escapes, she stumbles and falls into the trench between the farm and the car, breaking her ankle. The vampire finds her and they struggle, with the vampire seemingly biting her. She manages to push him off and finally kills him.
In the light of dawn, the trench reveals a cemetery of vampires frozen to stone.
***END OF SPOILERS***
Firstly, I’d like to point out that the film has a tiny budget, obvious from the miniscule cast and Niamh Algar (Sarah) carrying the entire performance. The monsters are exceptionally thought-out, with a sort of From Dusk Til Dawn sort of appearance: long pointed teeth and bald heads, although this film portrays the vampires as cunning and smart despite their muteness, and although I don’t usually find vampires scary, this film turned that on its head.
I would have liked to see more gore in the film, as I felt it was treated with a bit too much delicacy. For example, during one scene Sarah must remove a finger which has been bitten, and the actual removal of it is done off screen. It is almost as if wounds and cuts don’t phase the characters, least of all Sarah, who continues on with almost superhuman calm and quick-thinking whilst being tormented by monsters for the entire evening. This is mainly down to the directing – I would have liked to see some panic – even if it was only for a split second. It seemed as if it was a walk in the park for Sarah, and not vampires coming out of nowhere in the Irish countryside to kill her and the man she loves.
The creepiest thing about this film is the concept of the vampire. The vampires are breathtakingly scary, and the thing I find scary is that they aren’t mindless zombies as some vampires are portrayed: more originally, they are more than able to think and even outwit the humans, as well as their strength. The setting had a capacity also to be creepy, as farms in the middle of nowhere often are, but I found that it was barely explored except in the first ten minutes and briefly in one chase scene through some stables and barns.
Light is used as a way to combat the monsters, to keep them at bay and to eventually kill them. However, this becomes problematic when the director uses minimal lighting and the action onscreen becomes basically obscure. I understand why it was done, although a bit more lighting would have really helped in some places without spoiling the mood.
What’s more, in some places, despite the short run time, the film tends to drag. For 90 minutes, I would expect the atmosphere to be tense and run smoothly, keeping a steady pace which will only sometimes decrease, and only ever intentionally. However, this film drags unintentionally: there is so much in this film (3 monsters coming one after the other) and endless battles that they become monotonous, and towards the end you can’t help but look at your watch.
What I really liked was the director’s decision to use the minimum amount of music. To heighten the tension during long scenes of action dramatic orchestral music is used effectively, but the music is not the star of this show unlike many other horror movies which rely on music to do the scaring.
The weapons are primarily variations of light, although a tractor is also used, which is amazing! However, situated on a farm, I would have thought that many more weapons could have been thrown together out of necessity: after all, I’m sure a swift shovel to the face would have at least slowed them down.
The script is a bit unnatural between the couple, and I don’t really find their relationship believable. However, there is virtually no talking between the first 20 minutes and the rest of the film – which I thanked my lucky stars for!
Overall, I found the film entertaining for what it was worth, bearing in mind the tiny budget, with a strong performance from Niamh Algar and several very well-executed ideas including the detail of the creatures. However, the character of Mark (not necessarily the performance of him), the poor writing and the film’s weird pacing let it down.
****THE RESULTS****
Gore 5/10
Disturbance/Creepiness 6/10
Originality 3/10
Scariness (behind-the-sofa factor) 6/10
Music score 7/10
Weapons 6/10
Cinematography/direction 5/10
Setting 4/10
Script 4/10
Entertainment 7/10
Overall 53/100
horrevolution 