CityLife

The Cottage (18)

91 mins. Comedy/Horror. Andy Serkis, Jennifer Ellison, Reece Shearsmith, Steve O'Donnell, Logan Wong, Jonathan Chan-Presley. Director: Paul Andrew Williams. Released: March 14 (UK & Ireland).

EVERY once in a while, an exciting British talent emerges from nowhere, searing onto our memory with a work of audacity and invention.

Two years ago, Paul Andrew Williams was that saviour with his impressive debut, London To Brighton, an explosive thriller about a prostitute and an 11-year-old girl on the run from a gun-toting pimp.

What the film lacked in budget it made up for in blistering performances from a largely unknown cast, taut direction and elegant scripting.

Needless to say, Williams's follow-up arrives with a huge amount of expectation.

Sad to say, The Cottage falls woefully short of his first film, awkwardly melding stomach-churning horror and black humour without a firm grasp on either strand.

Reece Shearsmith from The League Of Gentleman is cast as the dithering and clumsy hero, a supposedly comic foil to Andy Serkis's snarling partner in crime, a role he could play in his sleep - and possibly does in this soporific mess.

When Serkis isn't drifting off, we certainly are, despite regular explosions of grisly violence running the gamut of impalement, decapitation and dismemberment.

Bickering brothers David (Serkis) and Peter (Shearsmith) hope to get rich quick by kidnapping gangster's daughter Tracey (Ellison) then milking her old man, Arnie, for the ransom money.

However, Tracey is no pushover - she head butts Peter, breaking his nose, and is only silenced when David gags her and ties her to the bed.

Frosty atmosphere

The frosty atmosphere thaws slightly when the brothers receive news that Tracey's misfit stepbrother, Andrew (O'Donnell), who is part of their scheme, has been dispatched with the ransom money.

He arrives soon after but there's a hitch and David leaves to make a telephone call in the nearby village.

Then all hell breaks loose. Tracey turns the tables on her captors, knocking Andrew unconscious and dragging weakling Peter into the woods in the dead of night.

David gives chase with a still-dazed Andrew in tow, stumbling upon an old farmhouse, home to a maniacal loner with a taste for human blood.

The Cottage bears none of the hallmarks of Williams's glittering debut.

Tension evaporates early on, pacing is sluggish and characters are screaming caricatures who grate on our nerves so badly, we're cheering in the aisles when the deranged farmer starts hacking them to pieces.

Performances are lack lustre and the gag with Peter's harridan wife runs its course well before the hen-pecked fool is strung up on a meat hook minus a few digits.

True to form, Peter, David and co stumble to their doom without much resistance, ignoring the warnings of the villagers: "Make sure you lock your doors. Strangers don't fare well in these parts."

That would be an understatement.

If you can be bothered to stay behind until the end of the credits, you'll be 'rewarded' with an additional scene with Tracey's father.

What do you think? Have your say.