Unhallowed Ground (2015)

Undescribable Perfection

Don't Believe the Hype

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

A British teen horror then. Instead of posturing braggarts and plenty of arrogance, we have coy-eyed girls and clean, well-spoken boys. And a bit of arrogance. The wistful adolescent gossip concerning broken relationships and broken hearts that fuels any shallow character development hardly endears the young characters - although the cast do what they can. It actually took me a couple of attempts to get past establishing scenes rammed with 'as if' and 'whatever'.Six cadets - three girls, tree boys and not a blemish between them - take part in a night-time training exercise on the same evening two hapless burglars decide to rob the archives. The school they are patrolling seems to have had a gruesome history and so it is no real surprise (to the audience at least) when modest but effecftive horrific occurrences occasionally crop up.Of the burglars, Jazz is the downtrodden incompetent, with actor Ameet Chana injecting the same level of appealing ham-fisted qualities he did in his short-lived run in UK soap EastEnders. Will Thorpe is very good as his bad-boy co-conspirator Shane, and Rachel Petladwala makes a good impression as Meena Shah. In fact, the cast as a whole give good performances when their dialogue doesn't revolve around teen-speak clichés.As things go on, the pace improves but there is a distinct lack of tension and scares. Technically very competent but hardly edge-of-the-seat stuff, until the end, that is, when a few decent twists present themselves and the finale is nicely fitting thanks to unexpected parties. Not essential, but worth 93 minutes of your time.

The film opens with an abbreviated history of the Great Plague of London then flashes to the present to the Dhoultham School for Boys. In a strange situation three star pupils from Dhoultham (may I buy a vowel?) are teamed with three top female students from Norfield. They are to patrol the school for ??? a gold star? We are informed this is the anniversary of a tragedy which we find out about later...but the implication is the place is haunted. In addition to the supernatural aspect, two bad guys choose tonight to rob the school's achieves.This is a successful formula for 80's films (with or without the bad guys) and normally involves, an old house, funeral home, carnival, mall, or bowling alley...my personal favorite. However in this one they drove it into the ground. The six main characters didn't come across as developed. A shower scene from the neck up....ummm...you guys have seen a horror film before right? The special effects, which were low budget, would have been passable if the film had some character. Could one of the guys have been funny? Heck, even a stupid fart joke...you know the one ...did you hear that? shh. quiet. POPF! This would have been an improvement, the dialogue was that dry.Guide: F-word. Implied sex. No nudity.

You might think it's a good thing that they avoided certain horror stereotypes, but in this film they really needed those stereotypes. For example, it was 6 teens in a haunted house, but no one snuck in drugs. No one got naked (on camera anyway). None of the killings was gory, and the main bad guy was shot and killed by another bad guy (meaning that our heroes really didn't do anything themselves). A teen horror movie with no blood, no nudity, and no excitement? Coulda been a lot better. There were also unoriginal things that didn't work well, such as the power being cut, creatures lurking in the background who are never explained, etc.

I think that to be fair to a film and those that made it, you have to consider what they set out to achieve. Obviously low budget with unknown actors and direction you would expect something fairly low-rent but maybe watchable and that is exactly what you get. Interesting but implausible storyline, enthusiastic but sometimes almost hysterical acting, bargain basement special effects and repetitive backgrounds and scenery but all done with a degree of gusto and good humour.Lads (or new boyfriend and girlfriend) night in after the pub sort of thing.I expect that those who took part will move on to bigger and better things in particular the young cast some of whom showed promise and I would look forward to seeing the gorgeous Rachel Petladwala in something more challenging.Or anything really.I agree with the other reviewer that the film to some extent lacked the courage of its convictions but I suspect that they couldn't afford a really good "gore" make up artist and the cast were nervous about being typecast as sex sirens or whatever the male equivalent may be. All in all, it does what it says on the tin and is not in any way pretentious.It couldn't afford to be. As my old Latin teacher used to say "6 out of 10 for effort"