Album Review

Psychosis –

• 21st Jul 2010

What starts as a Friday the 13th type of “kill a bunch of campers in the first 10 minutes” quickly turns into a homage more akin to the 70’s British horror canon. Think hammer horror with distinct hints of Straw Dogs and The Wicker Man.

A young well to do couple move to the countryside and are soon offset by the odd behaviour of the locals in a community that is behaving rather oddly to say the least. Along the way our young protagonists have to endure happening upon shagging couples in the woods, nutty men flashing their privates, private orgies and doubt in each others’ minds. Yes a lot of time is spent on the “are you sure you aren’t just imagining it?” scenario.

Filmed on a fairly low budget – most of the bloodletting is either saved for off camera, or aftermath make-up artist effects, but that only really is something that bothers you in the film’s opening – as said before it becomes more of a psychological thriller and chiller.

Sadly the two leads lack that all too important chemistry. Ex-Buffy Girl (Charisma Carpenter) and manly “Londona’” Brit guy (Paul Sculfor) just don’t cut it. Apart from each other they work better, and as Carpenter has to do a lot of the emotional groundwork herself she fares not too badly.

Still some of the twists and turns towards the end of the picture do raise the bar above a lot of low budget chillers, and to be fair we haven’t seen this type of film for a while – so it is welcome on the horror shelf for that reason as well.