Residue

When you've been watching a lot of prestigious award winners and Hollywood commercial blockbusters as I have then you need to change the record slightly and throw yourself in to a guilty pleasure . RESIDUE sounds like the film I might be looking for . A sort of conspiracy thriller come horror movie . In some ways it sounds like a British version of THE CRAZIES . I'll say one thing for it - it's definitely guilty . I'll say something else - it's not a pleasure

An explosion kills 246 people at a nightclub in London and the area is evacuated . Four weeks later murders and bizarre suicides start happening on the periphery of the area . Is there a connection ?

Reading this synopsis it does sound rather like a pulpy James Herbert pulpy trashy horror tale . No one involved with RESIDUE is kidding themselves they're going to winning an Oscar but there is a potential of a good seed there somewhere but instead of growing in to a mighty tree it ends up shrivelled in fungi and quickly dies

To be fair to director Alex Garcia Lopez some shots are very well framed for what is very obviously a film constrained by a very small budget . However he doesn't do anything else well at all . Everything is overdone with constant creepy music drowning out the soundtrack . It's a horror film ? Yes Alex we noticed and can you spend more time developing the story instead of the constant and non stop reminder of the genre we are watching ? What drags the film down is the dire screenplay by John Harrison . We can forgive the ridiculous idea that the government have kept a chemical weapons dump in the heart of London if it's just used to set up the story but many things wrong with the story are unforgivable . The dialogue is always on the nose , unnatural sounding especially when voice over is used and quite frankly just bloody awful . Considering the actors weren't very good to start with their job is made impossible with the tools they're given and I doubt if Anthony Hopkins , Ian Holm or Daniel Day Lewis couldn't have given much of a performance with the lines they have to spout here

Some people on this page have mentioned RESIDUE isn't in fact a stand alone feature length movie but a pilot for a much longer project . In that case let me remind everyone of the Joan Armatrading song lyric " Drop the pilot smell my perfume" because RESI-POO stinks

Reviewed by: Dare Devil Kid (DDK)

Rating: 1.5/5 stars

One of the most insipid, lackluster, and soporific horror films of all time - yes it's that bad. Right from the buildup, which was haphazardly presented to the progression of the story, which was monotonously dragged on with little or nothing really happening to the supposedly anticipated, big reveal in the climax, which ended up petering out like a damp squib - just nothing went right for this film.

While the cast tires their level best to elevate proceedings, the hackneyed writing by John Harrison and Alex Garcia Lopez's pretentious direction leave absolutely no scope for redemption.

I've not seen the movie but I did check out the 3 part pilot on Netflix. Seems like the same project? I didn't realize Netflix were backing pilots but I think this is a really exciting step if they are. This show has solid foundations for a pretty great ongoing TV show and feels fresh coming out of the UK. I read the director has a background on Utopia and Misfits which makes more sense of this project's visual style and themes. I also read an article on indiewire 'How To Sell A TV Show to Netflix" http://www.indiewire.com/article/how-to-sell-a-TV-show-to-netflix- 20150401 and was pretty blown away about the journey that this took. It was a movie, and an extended TV pilot at the same time. That's pretty ballsy. I imagine the TV show plays better than the movie - there isn't really one central character you can get on board with in the way that you need to in a movie - but there is certainly a lot here to merit this project and make me want to see more. I think there is a lot of promise here for the future. A great looking, seedy, future-city, and a pretty amazing quarantine zone top my favorite things about this so far.

Leave it to the British to take the paranormal, government conspiracies, and biological outbreaks and then find a way to make them all boring. Visuals and music are all interesting and well done, but fail to hold up this otherwise limp story. Every dialogue feels like it's going nowhere and has a anesthetic effect that leaves you so numb by the time anything interesting does happen, it is incapable of getting a reaction or emotional response out of you.

They might have said before I wasted over two hours of my life that this "thing" doesn't have an ending. Three episodes for a pilot ? Seriously ? No wonder it wasn't taken up by anyone. I think they spent more of the budget on polythene than actors.