Salvage

A great addition to the flavour-du-jour domestic danger sub-genre (cf. Right At Your Door, The Strangers, Ils) as a small Scouse (that's Liverpool, non-UKers) neighbourhood finds themselves besieged by a mysterious murderous malcontent.

This features all one could hope for from such a movie - flawed (jut like us) yet likable (er, just like us) characters (take note Eli Roth), suburban slaughter, a threat more hinted at than seen, with a side-order of allusions to domestic terrorism and sinister soldiers skulking to add some spice.

I caught this flick a sweltering screening at the Edinburgh International Film Fest but if there's any justice in this bad old world then it'll be at a cinema near you in the not too distant!

Let me say how desperate, I've been searching for a good movie lately. I've been keeping my hopes up and I thought Salvage, due to it's pretty interesting plot summary, could do the trick. I was halfway right.

First off I'll start with the pros about Salvage. The opening 20 minutes was very well done. It was interesting and by the time the carnage started it was very suspenseful. The actors were all average at the very worst a little over the top sometimes (Especially the lead) but nonetheless they were good at what they do. The creature effects were great, as were the gore effects.

Now here are the cons. Nothing really interesting happens during the next hour of the movie. Other than 2 Extremely well done scenes that were actually scary and suspenseful (An attic scene and a tense shootout), the rest just was there. I couldn't follow what was going on because I was drifting in and out of consciousness during the whole movie. It never really felt like anyone was in any real danger; and it tried to be several different movies at once. (Think 28 Days Later, The Descent, and any creature feature, and you pretty much have Salvage, of course you can do this with most movies but Salvage didn't really try anything differently). I'm not saying that the over the top gore was comical it just felt really out of place at times and kinda took any realism this could have had to build suspense (By this point I had stopped caring).

I really don't want to give it a 6 or give it a 5 because it was pretty much dead center to me. But, I'll be generous and give it a 6 for trying. The effort put into it alone made it a 5/10 but as for the script it just didn't do it for me.

And by the way I really love British Cinema... I'd recommend to those who liked Salvage to check out The Descent and 28 Days Later if they want other good British horror flicks (Odds are if you have seen Salvage you've seen the other two)

Salvage do has his pro and contra's. I would like to choose in between. it takes a while before it starts (20 minutes) and due it's short time that's a bit too long. The first 20 minutes we start to know the personalities then suddenly things go from wrong to worse. A container washes ashore with some hidden secrets. The army is supposed to solve the problem but they can't do it. It's the twist in the story that makes the first 20 minutes a bit of a waist of time. Even the part were they are telling each other why they are cheating is a bit too long. Luckily, the blood is in tact and the slaughtering is sometimes brutal and even gory. A good effort to try to make a weird story but lacks sometimes of suspense.

SALVAGE comes across as an ultra-low budget variant on the whole 28 DAYS LATER theme, with terrified residents struggling to protect themselves from a rampaging killer whose identity is only revealed in snippets. Sadly, though, it's not much of a film at all, and certainly nothing we haven't already seen time and again, plot-wise. The whole 'container on the beach' aspect of the storyline (and title) is ridiculous and unconnected with the central story, which I imagined would be about thieving residents finding themselves affected by pollution.

Instead, it's the usual home invasion style antics, with a little excitement raised through some shenanigans in the loft, but not a lot. Inevitably, given the lack of money behind the production, much of the (short) running time is spent on people sitting around and chatting despite the air of pervading menace. A shame, then, that the characters are so lacklustre and unbelievable, particularly Neve McIntosh's ridiculous lead, Beth, who spends her entire time running around after an obnoxious daughter who clearly hates her guts.

Shaun Dooley, as McIntosh's comedic love interest, is better, but his character is purely there to give the lead somebody to talk to, so he doesn't get much to work with. The film squanders its money on some cheaply-staged gore effects (already done so many times, would have been better utilised if put towards more scenes of menace) while the regional accents of the Liverpudlian cast members render dialogue completely incomprehensible.

Part of the fun from watching comes from the realisation that this was filmed on the left-over sets from TV's BROOKSIDE, although the film's in serious trouble when the most interest it can muster involves recognising the bloody buildings it takes place in! Throw in a few silly plot twists and you have an entirely superfluous fluff piece that's surely going to be forgotten by all but the most ardent fans of modern British horror. If you want a decent film in this sub-genre, you could do worse than check out Isolation, about genetic experiments on cows at a remote farm.

I had heard about this film some time ago, and was quite excited to finally get a hold of it. Based on a single street, a woman has a falling out with her semi estranged Daughter. Not long after all hell breaks loose.

While the film has a relatively low budget, the movie is quite well filmed. The downside is this is far from being an action flick, with little in the way of violence. So it really relies on dialogue to push the film along... This is where things fall apart.

The two gripes I had with this film was inconsistent acting and not being able to hear them! I was constantly having to juggle the volume control, cranking the volume up for talking then having to quickly get it down before the speakers threatened to explode during loud scenes (which this movie loved using low end bass).

Overall i give this a 5 and that is really stretching it.