Distúrbio

'TORMENTED': Three Stars (Out of Five)

This BBC Films production is another tormented high school student revenge tale. It's directed by Jon Wright, written by newcomer Stephen Prentice and filled with a cast of relatively unknowns (although they could be bigger stars in the UK). A young actress by the name of Tuppence Middleton is memorable and strikingly attractive in the lead and the rest of the cast is adequate and fittingly cast. The story is routine and has been done many times before but it is filled with witty British dialog (as well as sometimes confusing slang). The directing is impressive for this type of low budget genre film and the soundtrack is very effective. All in all it's a pretty well made comedic slasher film.

As the film opens a bullied fat asthma stricken outcast named Darren Mullet (played by Calvin Dean) has just committed suicide. Class favorite Justine (Middleton) speaks at his funeral although she doesn't remember who he was. She later learns that the boy had a crush on her. The popular clique that made fun of Darren now accepts Justine into their group, with some resentment from the girls, and one of the boys (played by Dimitri Leonidas) has a romantic interest in Justine. As Justine falls in love with her new found popularity, and starts to forget her old friends, her new friends start dieing one by one. It appears as though Darren has risen from the dead and is exacting his revenge.

The film is touching and sad at times but it is a little heavy handed as well. Although I felt sorry for Darren and the way he was treated I had trouble routing for him as he viciously killed his tormentors. The death scenes are creative and at times humorous though and as far as low budget slasher films go this one is pretty well put together. It's got that dry British humor that's a riot at times (in this film) and the characters are all at least somewhat interesting. If you're a fan of the genre this is one worth checking out.

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The head girl Justine (Tuppence Middleton) gives a speech on the funeral of the teenage schoolmate Darren Mullet (Calvin Dean) that has just committed suicide but she does not recall who he was. Then she is invited by Alexis (Dimitri Leonidas) to date him in the celebration party in the house of his friend Bradley (Alex Pettyfer). Sooner Justine discovers that Darren had a crush on her and was bullied by Bradley and his friends including Alexis. When each one of Bradley's friends is found dead, they discover that Darren has returned from beyond to revenge the humiliations he was submitted.

"Tormented" is a funny and entertaining teen horror movie. The screenplay is not original, with the usual nerds, bullies and bitches, and will not be nominated to the Oscar, but there are unfair reviews in IMDb. This movie is not amateurish; the young cast is pleasant; the girls are very beautiful and sexy; and the ghost is really weird and creepy. There are sarcastic lines and situations and the deaths are generally violent and gore. Give a chance to this film and you may have a nice surprise. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Distúrbio" ("Havoc")

An entirely predictable high school horror in which a bullied student commits suicide and then comes back from the dead as a malevolent zombie, taking revenge on everyone who wronged him. The only difference with this production is that it's British-flavoured, but in every other respect it's the kind of movie you've seen a hundred times before.

The first thing that struck me as I watched this was the distinct lack of sympathetic characters. The high school students are a group of vicious and narcissistic bullies who you'll be waiting to get bumped off – even Alex Pettyfer, playing against type as a bad guy for once. Tuppence Middleton is, I suppose, the protagonist and somebody you're supposed to root for, but I found her as irritating as the rest. Vaguely interesting characters, like James Floyd's Nasser, are kept to the sidelines. The antagonist isn't very pleasant either. Watching this becomes a bit of a depressing experience, one in which you're just waiting for the next gore scene.

And gory it is. The film-makers adopt the approach of making every death as inventive as possible, and there are some truly nasty moments played out for their absurd, comedic value as well as the bloodshed. The bit involving a guillotine is particularly outrageous and really works, and it's moments like this that stop TORMENTED from being a dog in the same way that non-starting hoodie horror F was a dog. In fact, it's fairly well made throughout, with well-shot direction and a perfectly-timed pacing. Perhaps not a film you'd ever want to watch again, but it does the business for a one-time viewing.

Let's face it; growing up through the ever encumbering teenage years can be tough. What with the numerous social pressures from peers, the raging hormones, dead serial killer bully victims and the fact that your every move pretty much defines your life from then on—it's quite possibly the hardest time of your life. But hold on just a minute, what's this about homicidal, vengeful ghosts of overweight asthma kids taking out their angst on other high school clichés from the chavs to the goths and emos? Well, yeah, it happens—not a lot, but Tormented goes on the record to prove just how much more inconvenient this little chink in the chain of teenage life can be. Think you have a headache from exam stress? Try having pencils shoved through your nose into your cranium, or perhaps something more traditional like a screwdriver through the throat; now, that's tough.

Like all brilliantly devised horror stories however, we must start at the beginning—the humble innocence of a time when ghosts and bloody murder seemed neighbourhoods away in some dingy alleyway somewhere, or perhaps confined to DVD collections of your average ditsy teenage girl. Here our story begins at the funeral of Darren Mullet, a guy with such a terribly obvious-to-pick-on name and stature that if it wasn't for the fact that he was the one being buried, he probably wouldn't have been invited. The same goes for his bombastic wake party hosted by his school peers who only ever knew him by his nickname (Shrek) and use the outing as another social ritual of alcohol-fuelled bedroom disappointments. All is going pretty well for the hypocrites and social pundits of Wherever High, that is, until big buzz-kill Darren decides to crash everyone's party and start bringing the thunder through various, very elaborate and poignantly ironic means of murder (it's pretty obvious he was horror buff)—well, when he's not gasping for air and taking a puff of his inhaler. Good news is though, that you can still get a reception in the afterlife because Darren even finds the time to send some rude, antagonising messages to his victims before slaughtering them; classy.

Sound comical? Well, it is, but not entirely in a good way. You see, while Tormented is being touted as being a "comedy horror", you could just about tag that onto most horror movies without causing much of a ruckus. The fact of the matter is, Jon Wright's movie can be fun (as fun as a movie that essentially strives to take the subject of teenage suicide and depression and look at the… ahem, funny side can be), sure, but it's also a bit of a drag at times. On the one hand you have this ridiculous plot which never seems to take itself too seriously, which makes for some entertaining watching at the very least—but then on the other you have this very fine cast ensemble who lend the movie a sense of Skins-esquire realism that distinctly puts the otherwise campy and self-depreciating narrative on a bit of a backburner, despite the fact that most play broadly written caricatures. The resulting feature is fragmented and somewhat perplexing; not quite dissimilar from your average teenager then, I guess.

Tormented can be genuinely funny, a little spooky, and even somewhat moving in a couple of scenes, but too often it's the case that the viewer will be left laughing at the movie rather than with it (a primary example being one of the best ads for safe-sex I've seen in a while). Sure, it offers a horror experience that, because of its levity, doesn't numb the cortex, but neither does it really make that much of an impression. Instead, the entirety of the movie can be written off as being a mildly amusing, but mostly insignificant distraction. Horror buffs will probably enjoy all the farcical horror shenanigans a lot more than your average cinephile of course, because despite the fact that Tormented really isn't a great movie per se, it's at least got all the staples and defining traits of your average back row snog-fest to fill up the awkward silences with guffaws of "Oh my God, look at that guys chest bleed! Awesome!". However, if you do decide to—or if you have already taken it upon yourself to—see Tormented, take a moment with me now to reflect on the life of poor Darren Mullet that was taken when he hung himself instead of just, you know, not using his inhaler anymore.

Tormented is directed by Jon Wright and written by Stephen Prentice. It stars Alex Pettyfer, Sophie Wu, April Pearson, Calvin Dean, Dimitri Leonidas and Tuppence Middleton. Music is by Paul Hartnoll and cinematography by Trevor Forrest.

A bullied teenager at Fairview High School takes his own life but appears to have come back from the dead to take revenge on his classmates.

Gruesome, fun and flavoured by pinches of satire, Tormented is a far better film than the internet ratings suggest. The serious subject of bullying makes its point, particularly late in the proceedings, but the makers are more interested in capturing the spirit of the techno teen times while focusing on the antagonists in their natural habitat. They are a dislikable bunch, not only in how they treat those they view as inferior to themselves, but also to each other. Even the central "couple" at the core of the plotting, the closest the film has to someone for us to side with as they strive to survive, come with bile baggage that reveals itself as we hurtle towards a deliciously spiky finale. There is much self-absorption and crudeness, sexulisation and ignorance, it's a bit of a kicker is this, but we are firmly on the side of the recently departed Darren Mullet (Calvin Dean). The cast performances are a mixed bunch, but this hardly hurts the picture, while serious gore hounds will lament the lack of close ups for the "killer" scenes. But this is more than a generic slasher, it has psychological smarts and nifty observations on modern technology's usage for cruel intimidation. It also knows how to have a good time, and you should too. 7/10