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Such a frustrating disappointment

Good concept, poorly executed.

Absolutely Fantastic

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Two couples spend a weekend in the country, only to cross paths with a brutal serial killer. As the body count rises, suspicion spirals into paranoia, climaxing in a terrifying battle for survival.Watching this film makes me lament the fact that making films today is fairly cheap and getting a distribution deal is easier than even. Any group of friends with a digital camera, a little bit of skill and some free time can make a film -- especially a horror film, which are notoriously easy to make and market. While there are exceptions ("Clerks" and "Slacker" come immediately to mind), by and large movies were better when you had to raise a significant sum...That being said, this film has some things going for it. The acting is good, the editing is good... had a big studio made it, it might have been a small hit. Maybe. But there is nothing original about it, and it mostly just looks cheap. I like bad horror films (probably too much), but this was even beneath my standards... rent pretty much anything else (except Tyler Perry).

Since my viewing of "Don't Let Him In", I deliberately waited two days to write this comment, allowing for the film to sink in a bit deeper. My very first impression wasn't overly positive, but there were a few aspects that I felt were worth pondering about. For example, some of the principal characters are very identifiable and sympathetic, but the killings are cruel and extremely sadistic. This combination leaves a rather unpleasant aftertaste in your stomach just after finishing the film, but the memory that sticks permanently is that "Don't Like Him In" is a new horror movie that dares to shock and provoke the audience perhaps? The premise of the film is rather basic. Calvin and Paige, a joyous young couple, have planned a weekend in the Southern British countryside where Calvin grew up. They also invite Calvin's baby sister Mandy, a little troublemaker who always picks the wrong guys to date. She just spend the night with the extremely arrogant and obviously up- to-no-good bloke Tristan; who reluctantly accepts the invitation but mainly because he has to hide from authorities. Upon arriving in the cottage, the foursome also immediately receives warning that the neighborhood is under the reign of terror of a crazed serial killer with a peculiar modus operandi. The aptly nicknamed "Tree Surgeon" dismembers his victims and hangs the body parts in trees. Obviously they will confront the killer eventually, but there's a fair chance the group will already be traumatized by then. Director/co-writer Kelly Smith – usually an editor – assures a logical unfolding of the plot, complete with some clichés and red herrings, and she (at least I assume Kelly is a female) often even manages to generate a morbid and deeply uncomfortable ambiance. The acting is remarkably good! As stated above, the good- natured characters are genuinely amiable and the ill-tempered ones are, in fact, very despicable. The murder sequences and make-up effects are raw and grisly, but I guess that could also be seen as an additional recommendation for horror fanatics.

Well, I always try to find something positive in any movie, but here my empathy is really stretched to it's outer limits (and beyond). This is just one very bad movie! Even for a non-pretentious slasher flick like this, there's no other qualification. Okay, maybe the premise, albeit far from original, is not totally wrong. Four persons spend a night in some forlorn cottage while there's a warning for a serial killer on the loose in the vicinity, and when some of them are getting attacked and murdered we start to wonder if maybe one of the group itself is the killer. but besides the premise, virtually everything else is wrong. To begin with: the script is just terrible, it's like the school-project of some first grade high-school kid, it's just SO lame and childish and unrealistic! For instance, who in his right mind would take an utterly unknown one- night-stand of one's sister with you on a weekend-trip to a cottage, while this guy is totally obnoxious from the start and behaves to his hosts in a revoltingly rude way? Then we see a police-officer (or is it? it looked like the late Benny Hill in disguise), who cheerfully tells the four that there's a sexually deviant maniacal serial killer on the loose who cut's off his victim's body-parts, and then he concludes with: "but don't worry, we have everything under control, just keep your doors and windows locked". I just couldn't believe he said that! What's worse: they actually buy it: "hell no, why go home, the police says they have everything under control…!" A complete stranger stumbles into their cottage, his belly mutilated with a knife. Do they call an ambulance? Or 911?? No way, our fearless female hero turns out to be a nurse and without any hesitation sows the guy's flesh-wound up with fishing rope! Without anesthesia! Do they call for an ambulance after-wards? Or bring him to a doctor themselves?? Not so, they put this total stranger in the marital bed. And behold: the next day the guy get's up, eats a rich breakfast and soon starts to help out (cooking meals!) in the cottage. Mind you: all this as if he's the most sound and crisp man alive, in stead of a recently mutilated and operated patient. Oh, I almost forgot: the guy doesn't want to make a fuzz about his being stabbed by a stranger in the woods (as if such trivial things happen to him all the time!) and doesn't want the police involved. Do they grow suspicious? No way!! This miracle-cured guest offers to go and look for the missing husband in the middle of the evening and returns with the horrendous report that he found the husband dead and mutilated somewhere in the woods. The wife is devastated for at least three seconds. Does she doubt it, like anyone else would? Does she run out to look for him herself? Does she turn hysterical?? Not a chance. She believes it on the spot and reacts almost as casual as if her soufflé sagged-in. There's some kind of twist in the end, okay, that could have been interesting. But the switch from endearing and grateful guest to a devilish, rambling and drooling maniac is just too big to swallow. He drags our heroine to some cave-like hole in the woods, but apparently for reasons of a good sport sets her free, to chase her again. She runs for her life, comes up to a farm (hey, the cottage wasn't that secluded after all!), picks up a rake to punch it into the first man that leaps from behind the hay-stack. Alas, it's Benny Hill, the copper. I could swear I heard her whisper "Oops...!" in his dying face, before she drags out the rake and turns into this epic (just being ironical!) final battle with the maniac. Here the script turned out to be so weary of it's own tedious cliché's that they decided for an original ending: she pushes the killer backwards into a conveniently present colossal razor-sharp wooden stick (that for some unfathomable reason protrudes out-off the hay-stack) and in the process pales herself too. Thank god she has enough breath left to utter some Famous Last Words, something like: "the last laugh is on me….!" The last image is the two of them hanging belly to belly together as a perverted couple of rag-dolls. Well, all this may seem like the ideal ingredients for a hilarious horror-parody, but it's nothing like that. Everything is brought to us dead-seriously without even the least tongue-in-cheekness. And to boot it all, the acting is over-all abominable, and apart from the last surviving wife everyone looks unattractive and dreary. The surroundings are grey and boring, the photography is uninspiring and the special effects (if any) look cheap. Oh, and for a wannabe horror-flick it lacks the most important ingredient: it's not even a tiny bit scary.

This is certainly not the sort of film I would normally go out of my way to watch. However I was lucky enough to be invited to the BAFTA premiere and who's going to turn that down?! Watching the trailer I was slightly concerned this would be a bit too 'Hard Core' gore for me but was pleasantly surprised. The film certainly has it's fair share of blood and guts and the amazing sound mix makes the visuals all the more nasty. I was certainly squirming in my seat at times. However this is very well balanced with well drawn characters and an engaging narrative.The film takes you with it from the outset and even before it all goes a bit "Pete Tong' you care enough about the characters to want to know what happens - also I suspect because you know it will kick off at some point you're waiting for the moment!If I'm honest there was a scene that didn't quite work for me involving a character's eye (not to give too much away) but I'd invested emotionally enough in the film at that stage to go along with it and sort of reset my frame of reference as to what was possible in universe the film is set. It's the sort of moment which, love it or hate it, you'll remember and I'm sure the film makers intended exactly that.The film plays with you a bit and you're not really sure who the 'tree surgeon' is until it wants you to know, which I liked a lot. I felt the end was slightly contrived but once again just went with it and enjoyed it for what it was.Technically there has clearly been some serious investment in the sound mix and the picture grade which I think have been well worth it and given it that gloss that means you to forgive a few minor failings. The film looks and sounds great and I would imagine would be a good date movie particularly on a large screen with a good sound system. It's a very respectable first feature for the director Kelly Smith and I hope it makes it's money back and more so we can see more from him.All in all the film is good fun and well worth a watch but - don't let him in - seriously don't!