Community

                                                        

I was looking forward to the Horror Channel's premiere of British chiller Community, it sounded like it could have a good dash of Eden Lake mixed in with  more than a little The Hills Have Eyes, but sadly it really fell flat in most all departments.

Isabelle (Jemma Dallender) and Will (Elliott Jordan) venture on to the run down (that's putting it mildly) Draymen Estate to make a student film on urban deprivation, or something like that. Immediately they are confronted by some very eerie looking kids who are busy torturing and killing animals. How else do you fill your time on derelict estates? But that is nothing compared to the grunting youths, who give us their best impressions of the Dawn of Man segment from 2001 and their plainly super psychotic parents. But Isabelle has an alternative reason for her venture into the Draymen, she is being blackmailed to search out the Estate's hyper addictive weed crop. Our duo soon fall foul of the residents and their uber creepy leader Auntie ( Paul McNeilly). 

With Community all the ingredients are there for a rattling good scare fest, but writer, director Jason Ford fails to deliver.

We don't get to know Isabelle and Will before they enter the Draymen, plus they are not really the most sympathetic of characters. Just because Isabelle is being blackmailed doesn't mean we should automatically feel sorry for her. Jason Ford should have watched Eden Lake, at least, another fifty times before embarking on this project.

 The pace of the film flags dreadfully at times, I've never been so glad to see an advert break.With the possible exception of Auntie, none of the characters are that interesting, or desperately frightening. This is one Community that needed a little more care.

The Owner