Punch

Saw this today at the Bournemouth horror movie film festival "screams by the sea" Loved it. I wont spoil it other than to say it builds into a fantastic movie with some great twists along the way. I thought the cinematography was spot on, some great drone shot and performances by the actors. It showed a very bleak looking dying northern seaside town and the reality of living in a place like that. The killer was genuinely disturbing, my only negative, the way the audio was mixed (or maybe it was the speakers at the venue) you could only understand about 30% of what the protagonist was saying. Recommended.

Punch is a low budget British slasher horror set in a down-at-heal seaside town.

It's a nice try, but it wears its influences on its sleeve and suffers from an identity crisis as a result. Is this a social commentary on teenage life and subculture? Is this an 80s-style slasher flick with quips and gags and an amusing killer? Or is it a throwback to the more spiritual horror of the original Wicker Man?

The result is tonally incoherent; one minute deadly serious, the next seeking laughs. Characters act in odd ways with unclear motivations, designed to lead to a particularly obvious conclusion.

A main issue is the serious, family sub-plot that utilises suicide in an attempt to raise emotional stakes, but the jarring tonal shifts undermine this at every opportunity. But do we ever really care about Punch's victims? Not really. Attempting to crowbar in the morality rules of stalk-and-slash into a serious narrative just does not work.

The acting performances are fine for the most part, though the older cast often let the side down. And I'm not so sure the peculiarly British character of Punch will travel well; a horror involving a murderous morris dancer troupe, shin-kicking to the death, or cheese-rolling cult might be just as relatable.

Punch would have been a far better movie had it chosen a lane and then stuck to it.

The visuals in the movie are actually good, but the rest is so bad it doesn't matter by the end. Killer is hard to understand at times with the electro-voice box, characters don't react as they should to events in front of them, and the kills are all boring except for the one with the redhead on the dock. Ending was puzzling and an attempt at a twist I guess. The twist was it didn't make sense or work at all. End credits say 'Mr. Punch will be back' so the makers seemed pretty confident they made a franchise starter. Um, no. It's nice that the friends of the crew gave the movie 8s out of 10, but watch it and you'll want to have a little talk with them afterwards. In the end, I watched this on Tubi, so free streaming. I still want my money back.

What starts out looking like a pretty standard slasher it soon becomes its own thing. Yes there are clear influences from classic horror movies but not just the Hollywood slashers you'd expect.

A very British movies, with some familiar faces from UK TV and horror movies. The cast are all great, especially the 3 newcomers who are the leads. So well shot, seaside towns can be as eerie as hell,the soundtrack adds to the atmosphere. Violent but not too over the top and when it's meant to be it is very funny.

I rarely say this nowadays, but I really hope it becomes a franchise. The ending left me begging for more.

Watched at Dead and SudBuried 2023.

No pun intended - actually this has quite a few of those. It is not called punch for nothing .. though I reckon you could bat your life on something else too ... did I spell something wrong? I think not ... another pun might be something you just witnessed.

But enough of my weirdness, let's get into the weirdness of the movie. That plays with its location - a friend of mine was raised in a small town like the one we see here. And I reckon there could be more movies like this one - even from the same director. And maybe some of the cast - as in sequels, prequels and all that (not sure about going to space, which was suggested during the Q&A at the Frightfest screening I attended) ... or Ibiza .. though I imagine it would be fun to shoot there and would be quite the different take (again no pun intended).

The actors were nice - well I think good would be a more apt word/description. There is a darkness here and it is not so much the time of day (night) it was shot. Can you dig what the movies does? And where it ends up? That actually may be the biggest issue with the movie ... or its biggest draw ... depending on how you feel about it .. it won't leave you cold (another pun?) that's for sure ...