Cherry Tree Lane

Cherry Tree Lane is written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams. It stars Rachael Blake, Tom Butcher, Sonny Muslim, Jumayn Hunter & Ashley Chin. Plot finds middle-class couple Christine (Blake) & Mike (Butcher) suffering the ultimate home invasion hell when one night three youths force their way into the house looking for their informant son.

It's the sort of plot that could have been gleaned from The News Of The World on a Sunday morning. Whilst not as horrific as Eden Lake, or as far fetched as Harry Brown, Williams' third film unsettles from the off and has much to say along the way. We begin with a slow zoom in shot of the front of the house, a middle-class suburbia that's comforting and a world away from the horror about to be unleashed. Then inside and Williams appropriately films an untended cooking pot coming to the boil as Christine chats on the phone in the back ground, the simmer to boil motif neatly setting us up for what is to come. Told in real time, Cherry Tree Lane's story never leaves the house, claustrophobia reins as our couple are trussed up and subjected to a terrifying ordeal. Pretty sparse in set up and location, then, but this is not just an excuse for some terror. Williams goes a bit more deeper with his themes, daring to delve into the psyche of Britain's unruly youths, neatly observing cultural class division and the ever widening gap between the generations. It's darkly humorous at times too, the bleakness of which has a cheek about it as the story runs its (collision) course.

Where Cherry Tree Lane differs from other film's of its ilk is that the violence is mostly done off camera, mercifully so during one extreme passage. The power of suggestion really comes to the fore as we hear but don't see. This lack of on camera violence will disappoint those who need it in their horror diet. So be advised gore seekers, this is unlikely to be the film for you. Williams also faces the problem of trying to avoid comparisons with the afore mentioned other film's, the likes of Funny Games and The Strangers. It can be said that the home invasion format is most likely now looking a bit tired, to that end Williams' British take is likely to only resonate with the self aware British public. But it is challenging and confrontational. The ending is a little too abrupt, and perhaps inevitably-implausibility creeps in. But for the most part this is unnerving stuff, a chilling tale executed with a realism that's not found in more glossy productions: with the final shot astutely serving to keep us agitated. 8/10

Cherry Tree Lane is an urban thriller about a couple whose home is invaded one night by a gang of youths who wish to harm their absent son. While they wait for the boy, they mete out some physical and psychological torture. Like all house-invasion movies this is a very disturbing film. It's not entirely dissimilar to notorious exploitation films such as House on the Edge of the Park (1980). Although, admittedly, the sexual violence in this thriller is committed off-screen unlike that earlier film's non-stop barrage of sexual assault. Nevertheless, Cherry Tree Lane is certainly in the same general ball-park, just toned down and with better acting performances.

All of the action is restricted to the interior of the house at the fateful address, generating considerable claustrophobia. The villains are typical London gansta youths - this is a house invasion movie for the hoody generation. It plays on middle-class fears of gangs of violent working-class youths. The young hoodlums seem to have come from a different world from their victims. They have no use for the contents that make up the unfortunate couple's home such as bottles of red wine or their DVD collection. This uneasy chemistry adds to the tension and adds a different undercurrent to proceedings. The film does stretch believability a little with the introduction of two teenage girls and a young schoolboy into the fray; they act as if this is a normal night out but it just seems inconceivable that they could be so blasé in this extreme situation. Nevertheless, the introduction of these characters does allow for the set-up in the final scene in the movie, in which things are left hanging on an unanswered question that leaves the viewer wondering if the horror of the night has in fact ended at all.

Overall this is not an easy film. It's intense and sometimes difficult to watch, and it truly offers no respite by the end. So Cherry Tree Lane is certainly not a film for everyone. But for those with a mind for something dark and troubling, it's a journey worth taking.

Like hoodie-horror Eden Lake before it, Cherry Tree Lane attempts to scare the viewer by tapping into their innate fear of the yob generation, depicting a law-abiding, middle-class, suburban couple at the mercy of a vicious gang of 'yoofs' (before the tables are eventually turned for a brief but satisfying slice of retribution).

Writer/director Paul Andrew Williams handles the material confidently enough (certainly better than the dreadful black comedy of his previous film The Cottage) and commands solid performances from his cast, young and old, but while I cannot deny that the film packs a powerful emotional wallop, largely thanks to its unsettling sense of realism, I do feel that the extremely thin plot isn't quite strong enough to sustain an entire feature film. Even at a scant 74 minutes (according to my DVD), there's a fair amount of padding; the movie would have been more successful had Williams added a bit more 'meat' to his narrative, or if the whole thing had just been a bit shorter.

Over nearly a decade of seeing films at the EIFF you naturally come across some bad films. Cherry Tree Lane falls into the category below that, the one were referring to it as "film" is an insult to other films. In short the whole "film" is a padding out of a 5 minute scene from a drama club or the like that doesn't even manage to make a full 90 minutes (estimated 75 minutes). The dialogue could easily have been improvised by the very young cast and the only directing tricks Paul seems so posses is ultra close-ups or foreground-object whilst we watch the scene in the background.

Leaving the second screening the audience were shocked at how bad the film was and for the second half, people were laughing at moments of apparent tension due to the complete lack of any substance or idea. The most laughable thing of all is this was actually up for the Audience Award! With one exception this is quite possibly the worst British film ever made (the worst being The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael).

Cherry Tree Lane is a 70 minute Funny Games/Eden lake-esque 'horror' that sees a bunch of teens terrorising a not-very-happily married couple in North London. Despite the ridiculously short running time, Cherry Tree Lane is LONG. Too long. I found myself drifting in and out of consciousness listening to the pointless conversations that this film includes. Moments include the leader, shall we say, eyeing up 42-year old Christine, telling her to stand up "to see how fit she is" whilst her husband, gagged on the floor, is yelled at "don't look round at me, blud!" So basically, it's a group of chavs armed with knives, stealing credit cards and biscuits. They aren't JUST after money though, they want the couples son who's apparently not been able to keep his mouth shut about someone cousin...or something along those lines. There were some nice slow motion shots, but other than that, it's a very simple film with the only location being the house, well, the living room. There were a handful of tense moments that had me remotely wondering what was going to happen, however, it's all rather predictable. I didn't REALLY care what was going to happen at the end, although, I did hope the couple would execute some revenge if they were to escape. Overall, it's not the worst film in the world, but it's definitely not the best of it's type; Eden Lake and Funny Games are a lot better..and the teenagers seem too stupid in Cherry Tree Lane to carry out anything too horrific.