Cherry Tree Lane

Writer and director Paul Andrew Williams surely knew his stuff with The Children (2008) and The Cottage (2008). Cherry Tree lane tries to make a horror about strangers invading a house but this time it's more about some hoodlums who are after the son of the house who has been clicking to the police. I can understand that for some it all looks like it could happen with themselves or their neighbours but it is a bit low on brutality or red stuff. So I won't say it was bad but it was more a flick with a message if you just watch the end. I would rather say it's a kind of thriller, drama.

What makes it more a thing that could happen to yourself is the fact that they spoke in their dialect. It surely shows how society is today but if you leave the message out of this flick then there isn't that much happening. The rape is done off-camera only to make the viewer think what will happen or what is going on upstairs. Maybe the last 10 minutes are a bit shocking for the easily offended but don't think that you will see Straw Dogs (1971) or The Last House On The Left (1972), therefore it doesn't have enough brutality or shocking moments. I can also understand why horror buffs don't like it. Just watch Inside (À l'intérieur (2007) instead if you want a gory disturbing house-invasion movie.

Mixed feelings about Cherry Tree Lane and I can understand why. Acting was rather okay but surely not an exploitation as those 70's revenge flicks.

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

Another hoody film.

A boring couple have their home invaded by some scumbags looking to exact revenge on their son. The usual tying up and degradation of the main characters takes place. The problem is I didn't care about them. The characters were so clichéd and one dimensional that I felt nothing for them.

The lead thug is just a ridiculous ball of unthinking testosterone that he's unbelievable. Couple this with his sidekick thug with a heart and it just gets stupider. I spent the whole film just hating the main thug, which I suppose was the intent. But I was just waiting to see him die and had no interest with anything else. Then just when you think the limits of believability can't be stretched any further, the thug's girlfriend shows up with her little brother in tow to watch. I think even an idiot would doubt a school child's ability to keep his mouth shut about witnessing the events which take place, but they let him stay all the same.

I'm not really a fan of the this kind of film but I had enjoyed the directors other films so I thought I'd check it out. Now I've seen it I never want to see it again.

I was tricked into watching this film by a review, so I feel obligated to give my own so there will be no more casualties..!

This movie can not really be called a thriller: there is no real suspense and nothing is surprising;you can tell how things will evolve from the first minute that the actual "plot" starts.

I actually fast forward it many times and compelled to rerun it, only to find that nothing had happened in between.

All in all, this was a wooden, disturbing presentation of a lower class youth, with a completely unsuccessful attempt to portray a dysfunctional family, lacking all definitions of any meaning of film.

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.