Salvage

2009
Director
Lawrence Gough
Starring
Neve McIntosh
Shaun Dooley
Linzey Cocker
Dean Andrews

Next up on the list of low budget British horror films made in the last few years is Salvage. It's the big screen debut from Lawrence Gough and stars Gormenghasts Neve McIntosh (Beth) and Red Ridings Shaun Dooley (Kieran) in the main roles. Yes, these low budget British affairs are generally filled with TV actors, but if they're willing to take a punt at something I'm with them.

Fun fact number 7,300,297 is that this was filmed in the same cul de sac they shot brookside on. I do generally wish they'd actually shot brookside out a canon but for some reason people love that crap. Apart from Anna Friel kissing a woman I can't remember much else about it, wait didn't someone bury their husband under a patio or something... Bloody soap operas, oh the fucking drama.

Where was I, oh yeah it's a fucking film. So in the film a container is found off the coast, things start to go weird pretty much from then on. It's part inspired by the real-life beaching of the container ship MSC Napoli off Branscombe Beach in Devon in 2007 apparently and you can see why. All these people clambering to get at crap when they have no idea what the hell is in the containers seems a little odd to me. But this film clearly puts those fears into 'yes, the worst did happen and now your all fucked'.

It starts with a wee paperboy delivering, well newspapers. He's hardly going to be delivering aids is he. It appears he doesn't have to dodge lawnmowers or Grannies jumping infront of him either. Anyway he comes across a couple arguing and being a nosy little shit has a good look. He gets chased from the guy inside, and runs like a bastard. Unfortunately for him he runs right into getting done in by some unseen entity. Well it's a guy with a big stick but you don't see him so that sounds far creepier.

So the rather awesome Dean Richards is driving his daughter to her mums (Bethh) so she can spend Christmas with her. She really doesn't want to though as apparently her mums a bit of a cunt. Later in the film you find out she left them to persue a career. Jodie (the daughter) clearly resents her, and it seems she'd rather spend time in some torture device made by Jigsaw than spend any time with her mum. But it's not like Neve McIntosh is playing the same bitch she played in BBCs Single father surely. I guess it doesn't help that when she arrives her mum is humping Kieran, an apparently married man she met in a bar the night before. Classy.

So Jodie runs off to her friends house across the street. It's about now the shit starts to hit the fan. An asian man thats covered in blood gets done in by some army types which leads Kieran to believe that's he obviously a terrorist, fucking moron. Anyway the army arrive and tell everyone to stay indoors, helicopters and everything. Some shit is going down.

So starts Beth trying to get a hold of her daughter who's just across the street but she could as well be in Dubai with the army presence around the area. This is basically the next hour or so of the film. It's very claustraphobic and at no point during this time do you find out what's actually going on. The paranoia level keeps getting raised for the people stuck indoors. It's very well done, things keep happening outside which keep raising the threat level for them more and more.

It's usual for me to start going into things at this point with the kind of detail you'd get if a five year old started talking about the artistic significance of Dali's Persistence of Memory, but I genuinely feel that this would possibly ruin moments of the film that would otherwise have you gripped. There are no moments which aren't huge to the storyline so in an effort not to ruin the film I will shut my big giant mouth up. And you now how hard that is for me. So go watch and enjoy, you won't regret it.