Today I am reviewing a 2008 British horror comedy called 'The Cottage'. I picked up the DVD yesterday at a bookstore in East Lansing, and was quite excited, because I'd heard some good things about this movie. It is billed as "a seriously twisted thrilling dark comedy", at least according to the DVD package. It was written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams, and stars Andy Serkis (otherwise known as Gollum from the LOTR movies), and Reece Shearsmith (the guy standing behind Martin Freeman in a short scene in 'Shaun of the Dead').
Shearsmith and Serkis play two brothers named Peter and David, respectively. The movie opens up with them getting out of a car outside of a cottage, and next we see there's an unconscious girl's body in the trunk. The girl, Tracey (Jennifer Ellison), is the step-daughter of a club owner named Arnie, whom David is trying to get $100,000 from, in order to purchase his recently-deceased mum's house. His intentions were to hold Tracey captive until he got his money, only things don't go exactly as planned. David somehow convinced his brother Peter to help him out with this, as well as Tracey's step-brother Andrew (Steve O'Donnell). The first half of the movie is a darkly funny, heist-gone-wrong type of film. Then **SPOILERS** once Tracey breaks free and has Peter take her to an abandoned cottage down the road, that's when the characters, as well as the audience, starts to notice odd things here and there. Something weird is going on. We find out a psychotic, deformed, presumably cannibalistic farmer lives in that cottage, and he's not too happy to find random people wandering about his property.
Peter (Reece Shearsmith) gets a nasty surprise.
I loved the tone all throughout the movie. It had that cheeky, clever sense of humor that is prominent in most British cinema, but it was rather dark, bloody, and gruesome in most parts. There's a lot of blood in this movie. Though it's not as gory or graphic as most horror movies nowadays, the fact that you grow to like some of the characters makes some of the deaths/kills rather shocking. Nothing wholly original, but there is some nice use of practical effects all throughout. Always nice to watch a horror movie with a lot of blood and no CGI.
Tonally it reminded me quite a bit of 'Shaun of the Dead'. Serkis played the straight, tough guy of sorts, while Shearsmith's character, at first, just came across as a bit of a wuss. A funny scene in the beginning has Peter calling his wife to "check in", which he explains has nothing to do with his wife having any of sort of leash on him, he just does it so she knows where he is at certain times of the day. Later in the film, when Peter starts manning up and taking charge, you really start to root for him. David, although not seeming like a very good person, does have his heart in the right place, and is very likable, albeit rather hot-headed. I thought both Shearsmith and Serkis did an excellent job in this film. They really helped sell the characters with their performances and suck you into the story. Jennifer Ellison (who played Tracey) did a great job as well, playing a foul-mouthed tough girl/daddy's girl. She's really pissed off for being kidnapped and knocked unconscious. She calls her step-father and promises that Peter and David will pay for what they did. Again, that doesn't go as well as planned either. Most of the time during the movie I had no clue what was going to happen next, and that's the best part of it.
To be honest, I flat-out loved this movie. I love horror and British humor and this movie pulled them both off extremely well, though not as well as 'Shaun of the Dead', but I mean, that's a masterpiece in itself. The only thing stopping this from being a classic rather than cult classic, was I thought the main "monster" looked cheesy rather than scary or creepy. He reminded me a lot of Victor Crowley from the 'Hatchet' movies. Which isn't a bad thing at all. I just think had he looked a bit creepier it would have been perfect. Also, the ending totally caught me off guard, and made me laugh out loud. But just make sure if you see this movie (which you most definitely should) to wait and see what happens after the end credits roll.
8.5/10 Bloody, clever good time.
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