Hush...

There have been a series of low budget British indie horror flicks coming out in recent years, some very much on the indie end (such as the grim Mum & Dad - made for £100,000) and others on the bigger end of the spectrum (such as Jake West's first big calling card - Doghouse - which followed on from his other, more indie projects such as the rather enjoyable Evil Aliens).

Somewhere in the middle and here we are with Hush - a road-horror-movie in the tradition of The Hitcher or Road Games, but taking place at night on and around the rain-soaked M1 motorway and its various service stations along the way.

While the opening ten minutes that introduce you to the lead characters and their faltering relationship can at times feel a bit clunky in the dialogue and delivery side of things, the atmosphere makes up for it. A near-empty motorway, a car meandering its way through the lashing rain, and a sinister-but-average-looking lorry up ahead.

Considering the indie budget, the atmosphere afforded through the crew's dedication (lots of consecutive night shoots, a lot of rain to be manufactured) really helps spur the film along - especially when the plot takes a more sinister turn when leading man Zakes catches a brief glimpse of a naked and caged girl in the back of the aforementioned lorry.

From this point on, and with the relationship establishing stuff gotten out of the way, the film really gets into its groove and becomes quite an effective low-fi cat & mouse chase flick. Pleasingly there are a few little twists dotted throughout that really keep you guessing, and on the back foot throughout most of the flick. All-too-easily this movie could have ended up as entirely predictable, but these few turns - as well as the previously adored atmosphere - manage to keep the plot fresh enough to keep you going through the not-too-short-not-too-long running time.

There are a couple of obvious moments, where you can see what's going to happen from a mile off, but it's still bloody good fun regardless.

I wasn't necessarily expecting great things from Hush, so I was pleasantly surprised to find more than I was hoping to. A very solid debut from Tonderai, and a really enjoyable British indie, which - on a final note - has further inspired me, as a fellow filmmaker looking for a way to get my boot wedged in the door.

Doghouse...

June's double-flick cine-trip's second movie kicked the ass of the last 'second in a day' movie we saw at the cinema (which was the utterly pish Observe & Report) - plus we'd had Pizza Hut between screenings, so my gut and blood sugar was thoroughly happy after an ice-cold Pepsi and a delicious individual-size (i.e. the literally perfect portion) Meat Feast pan-pizza ... it makes me want one right now just talking about, so I'd better shut up and start blog-juicing about Doghouse!

Was it ever going to be Shaun of the Dead? No it wasn't, and neither was Lesbian Vampire Killers, but that's not the point, and when you think about it for a moment, it's not even a fair target to aspire to. Shaun of the Dead was simply too good to be beaten.

Shaun of the Dead "ish" or "like" perhaps - as in, it's a "British horror comedy".

It'd be far more worthwhile to compare LVK and Doghouse - so which one wins out of the two (both released this year) - Doghouse wins. It's got a far more consistent style than LVK, it has more gore, it's funnier, and it's better constructed.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Lesbian Vampire Killers, but it generally felt a bit inconsistent and rushed, and then it all kind of fell apart towards the end. Doghouse on the other hand sticks to its guns, and provides the viewer with a greater sense of consistency from start to finish. You're not rushed into things - you get the required set-up time - but you're not left checking your watch either.

I rather enjoyed Jake West's previous flick Evil Aliens, so I'm really glad to see he's getting to play with a bigger budget and bigger names. Doghouse (adapted from a cult comic) is a horror film for horror fans, it's for the 'nerds' in the crowd, the sort of person who relishes in the gloopy gore of The Evil Dead ... primarily at least. It plays well to those not versed in the world of Sam Raimi before Spider-Man or the 1990s, or 'pre-Rings' Peter Jackson, but it certainly helps if you're a lover of Sam Raimi's madcap horror stylings.

Doghouse has a better-than-average bucket of gore to chuck around (although a few more stand-out gore-gags like in Evil Aliens would have been welcomed by the Evil Dead lovers in the audience), Danny Dyer's 'geezer schtick' doesn't wear thin, and the general feel of utter daftness was a real pleasure to watch.

It doesn't dawdle - which was ideal for a second-screening on a double-dip trip to the cinema like we were doing at the time - and, put simply, it's a good fun slab of Grindhouse-ish exploitation horror comedy. Buckets of fun - so here's hoping that it gets a spiffing treatment on DVD for the genre fans to lap up.