‘Comedown’ DVD Review: A Gritty Urban Horror Flick with Familiar Faces and Chilling Thrills!
Horror movies in the UK have exploded in the last few years, thanks mainly to the urban scene which is pounding all the shores. Hoodies and gangsters mixing with street kids and families have been appearing in all sorts of flicks recently. There’s been zombies, vampire nightclubs, aliens, inbred psychotics, vigilantes, lone serial killers and Welsh nutters. Apart from the traditional terrors and the long running UK street gangster films, along came urban flicks. These share the same mix of realism, gritty language, dubstep or grime beats, and usually the same actors.
Watching UK movies, you get to see a lot of the same faces working their asses off in main roles or cameo roles, a bit like seeing Lance Hendrickson, Tony Todd or Gunnar Hansen popping up here and there. Names like Danny Dyer, Tamar Hassan (My God, how many films have those two been involved in?), Craig Fairbrass, Noel Clarke, and Adam Deacon. The latter two are straight away associated with urban movies (Noel was of course Mickey Smith in the new Doctor Who reboot as well). Adam Deacon is the man who pops up in Comedown. He’s a rat-faced little grime lad who also moonlights now and then as an emcee (or ‘spitter’) and usually wears a cap or a hoodie in his roles.
Comedown has been recently released and centres its terrors in Mercy Point, a fictional abandoned tower block and the gang of teens who get trapped inside it. The owner of a local pirate radio station Locked FM, which operates from a club pays the gang (who have been shown day to day battling rivals and arguing) to break into Mercy Point and fix up an aerial near the roof top by 10pm. Yeah, they’re up for it, a chance to explore what was once their home, plus have a quick party.
From the outside stretching into the sky, Mercy Point looks like the biggest haunted (CGI) creepy edifice you’d ever see with memories of castles and sanatoriums in many a horror film. It is dark and crumbling, perfect. Watching the hoodies and skets break in are two figures from the roof, “Let’s show them who’s boss.” Once inside the gang are surprised to find the elevator still has power. “There’s some one else here.” Either way they don’t care because when you have a hard as nails Adam Deacon with you, you can deal with whatever. Armed with torches they explore their old turf and fail to notice blood around the security guard’s booth and the sound of flies behind a door. The gloom and doom-laden feel brings about a nod probably unknowingly to Session 9 and See No Evil as the corridors tend to hold a character of their own. The building is the main actor itself.
Once the aerial is set up and running, they chill out with beers and pills for a few hours. Jason (Deacon) drops pills into Lloyd’s (Jacob Anderson) can because he refuses to party due to his recent release from prison and the fact his girlfriend, Jemma is pregnant. What a miserable man he is, eh?
The first person caught is Jemma (Sophie Stuckley) who is alone on the rooftop after an argument with Lloyd. The gang tools up with whatever is around them and set out to find her, believing all they are looking for are rival hoodies from the city.
Returning to the flat they’ve holed up in after hearing noises from inside, they find the aerial has been smashed up and the words “SEE HOW THEY RUN” has been daubed on the wall. There’s an impaled rat as well. At one point they catch one of the two teens who are in the block only to watch him have a blade shoved through his throat from the shadows. This understandably panics them, see how they run in terror, realising that Jemma maybe hasn’t been caught by a rival gang. Hiding in a flat, catching their breath, Lloyd is determined but Jason wants out, so he heads off by himself in a frenzy screaming threats to the unseen killer. He discovers soon that the giant hooded murderer is quite nifty with a nail gun (ha ha, Adam is hard as nails then) and looks a lot like Reeker.
His friends go to the elevator and find it has been locked off. The stairs have been barricaded across as well. They find Jason looking like Pinhead. Screaming from the fifteenth floor into the night through a broken window doesn’t seem to do much good either. Yep, they’re trapped in the dark with a hulking unstoppable killer.
Some reviews spit venom at the hoodies, setting up the debate, how can we as a viewer have sympathy for such characters. They aren’t as annoying as some films, and do these reviewers forget the irritating jocks, nerds and princesses that populate a million USA slasher flicks? Jason is a violent character, Kelly (played by soap actress Jessica Barden) is a usual ‘chatting’ sket girl who is a solid fighter (the scene when she acts out Mike Tyson’s famous moment on the killer’s ear is a class moment), then there’s Jemma the sympathetic role, she spends a lot of the movie tucked up in a cage watching the Reeker dude slicing up corpses. Heroic Lloyd, gentle giant Col…. you get the idea that the characters are stereotypical, truth be told, but they’re not the first ever, are they? At least the film isn’t like Attack the Block and making thieves and head cases into heroes. These are just city dwelling teens caught in a lot of trouble.
The killer’s lair is suitably creepy, fire in the centre, flickering lights, mess all over. Unfortunately, it is plain obvious who the psychopath is going to be for most of the film, but don’t let that spoil your entertainment. Treat Comedown like a British take on The Burning and all is good.
Acting honours go out to everyone, there are no weak links, however some of the FX work is a bit shoddy, but considering the budget all is nearly forgiven. The large looming question is, why do none of the hoodies have mobile phones? If there’s a reason why they don’t have one or cannot use any in Mercy Point it isn’t revealed and that is a stupid problem which makes you grind your teeth since everything else is a treatment of realism. The ending is suitable in its dark and unfair conclusion.
Comedown is a good film, but like Piggy (see review for Piggy here) it isn’t a classic, so it cannot be viewed with great expectations. Geoff Bell plays the killer and is slightly restrained in the role. Geoff has played many support roles in films such as Storage 24 (as a very unrestrained character), Warhorse, Rock N Rolla, Stardust, “Brighton Rock (remake), Soloman Kane, and more. On the extras the director mentions his love of John Carpenter movies and how the original script was a lot nastier. He calls the finished film a “sanitized” version. He also says that if you hate the characters, you’ll love what happens to them. If you like them, you’ll feel for them and won’t believe they deserve their treatment. Jacob Anderson unfortunately comes across as a complete dickhead with his comments that the cast drew on real life people and took their characters on a journey like only they have ever done that. Indeed.
There’s twenty-two minutes of behind the scenes and interviews, plus more extras with even more interviews with the stars and director.
AKA: To kitirio tou tromou
Directed by: Menhaj Huda
Written by: Steven Kendall
Produced by: Gareth Wiley, Rodney Berling, Lee Brazier
Cinematography by: Trevor Forrest
Editing by: Adrian Murray
Music by: Nichola Fletcher, Nerm, Foreign Beggars
Special Effects by: Sav Akyuz, Neil Jenkins, Scott McIntyre, Molinare
Cast: Adam Deacon, Geoff Bell, Jessica Barden, Jacob Anderson, Calum Macnab, Sophie Stuckley
Year: 2012
Country: UK
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 1h 30min
Distributor: StudioCanal
DVD Specs:
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 16:9
Region: R2
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Supplemental Material:
– Behind the scenes
– Extended interviews with Menhaj Huda, Adam Deacon, Jacob Anderson and Jessica Barden