prod cinema cliché.
Director Tom Harper and screenwriter Jon Croker (a novelisation
released earlier this year was
adapted from an early screenplay
of Croker’s, as opposed to this being a filmic adaptation of that publication) deliver a highly derivative
piece of work. The central premise
of orphaned children owes much
to the Iberian horrors The Orphanage and The Devil’s Backbone,
while Eve’s many dream sequences bear more than a passing resemblance to the Silent Hill games
and movies, demonic nurses et
al. The fantastic location could
be straight out of a movie starring Peter Cushing or Christopher
Lee, but the film’s noisy approach
owes more to the crash bang wallop films of James Wan than the
brooding gothic classics of James
Carreras, polluted by poorly tele-
graphed cheap jump scares and
sub Elm Street dream imagery.
Too many of the film’s sequences
revolve around a character going
for a late night stroll, usually punctuated by the revelation that they
are in fact dreaming.
With Universal recently drawing the ire of horror fans by announcing their intent to reboot
the classic monsters that made
the studio’s name as a series of
superhero inspired action movies,
now would be the ideal time for
Hammer to return to their roots
and deliver the no nonsense treatments of Dracula, Frankenstein,
The Wolfman and friends that
genre fans are crying out for. With
each release, however, Hammer
seem more and more intent on
distancing themselves from their
heritage.
3 out of 10
Directed by: Tom Harper
Starring: Helen McCrory, Jeremy Irvine, Leilah de Meza,
Phoebe Fox, Ned Dennehy
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