Habit

Gross, mean, with wall-to-wall brutal sex and death, 'Habit' hasn't got too much going for it above and beyond the raw meat, man.

Cutie Lee 'accidentally' runs into haunted (by his mother's suicide) Michael down the benefits office, and lures him into the racy sex industry/cannibal cult scene.

Great, right ?

Partly.

All the ingredients we slaver over are here, especially Roxanne Pallet as a cannibal hooker, but something's missing . . Lack of style, maybe? Even a guts-spilt entry like this needs style, but it just kinda rolls on flat. Perhaps Manchester is full of nookie-dens where you don't survive the encounter; folk maybe take it in their stride (Unlikely? With Burnham as Mayor? Who knows . . ?) ?

'Habit' needs a boot up the gusset, in other words.

Many will be sated by a blood-drenched Pallett (now - awesomely! - 'Carrion' !!) in her undies, dashing down fresh flesh (cough!) with her eyes blazing and her bits wobbling . . And while Rox (a smoke-show, I don't care what anyone says) now distressingly claims to have left this stuff behind her . . 'Habit' deserves at least something raising for conferring on us such a heartwarming image as her legacy.

Habit: Gritty urban horror set in Manchester. Michael meets Lee when she's fighting with a security guard at a Job Centre. She brings him into a strange circle based at her uncles massage club, Soon Michael witnesses a violent killing and is party to the cult like group's cannibalism. Pretty gruesome and dark, people being butchered and having chunks bitten out of them. Things get complicated when the cult crosses a gangster but we see that more than one club is preying on it's customers. Not a film for the squeamish and unlikely to be a hit with the Manchester Tourism Board. Written and directed by Simon Halligan. 7/10

A British horror; A story about a troubled young man who takes a job as a doorman at a massage parlour in Manchester and soon finds himself falling into a criminal underworld. This modern noir has a theme about personal misery where it meets a subversion of morality. With graphic brutality, violence, and repulsive characters on show, it does remain mercifully ungratuitous. But there isn't enough exposition to explain the character's motives for the events that unfold. Some of the performances are ungainly; while local dialect fits the setting, some characters are too crude. The dialogue is less than inspiring and with an overuse of profanities.

The acting in Habit wasn't bad so that's already something but I can't say it's a satisfying movie. For that the story is a bit simple, not enough elaborated, even though the plot is pretty straightforward. It could have been better, now it's just about cannibals eating some random victims. They don't tell you why they do it, how they became like that and so on. The horror scenes are pretty gore so for the fans of that genre it's a good thing. For a low budget movie it isn't all that bad actually but it definitely could have been better storywise.

A troubled young man living in Manchester, England, gets himself a cash in hand job working as a doorman at a seedy massage parlour (brothel) but finds himself mixed up with a cannibal sex cult. This film is a gritty, urban drama with strong horror elements of murder and cannibalism, an interesting idea but sadly it just did not really work for me. However it is well acted, has interesting characters, some very graphic gore and a fair bit of sex to make it worth watching.