Comedown (2012)

That was an excellent one.

Powerful

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I watch a lot of horror/slasher films and most of them I get about half way through before I turn off. Comedown had absolutely nothing new to add to the genre and the characters were pretty unlikeable, yet I found I managed to sit through the whole thing without actually turning it off.A bunch of pretty horrible teenagers break into a condemned London tower block in order to set up a pirate radio station. However, there's the obligatory psycho happens to already be living there. And, unsurprisingly, he doesn't take too kindly to their intrusion. What follows is the typical 'hunt 'em and kill 'em' scenario.Although the killer looks like he's already starred in I Know What You Did Last Summer, he's played by Geoff Bell, an actor who always puts in a good performance (even if he does only just squeak in this case!). The rest of the cast are basically 'killer-fodder.' You won't find yourself shedding too many tears when they start getting hacked to death. One girl is pregnant and her boyfriend is a reformed convict, so I think we're supposed to root for them. Jessica Barden, who plays a particularly 'chavvy' young lady, actually puts in a pretty good performance.There's nothing new here and what little budget the film had seems to have been wasted on using computers to add extra blood in. Personally, I'd rather they'd have simply squirted a couple of bottles of tomato ketchup here and there, as the computer effects look a little bit too fake.Like I say, nothing too new here, but strangely watchable and quite good fun in its genre.

... Makes another deeply unpleasant film that borders on being unwatchable Yes the director of KIDULTHOOD is back and this time he tries his hand at horror in an inner London setting . This type of horror has been done before in ATTACK THE BLOCK , a film I personally despised because the anti-heroic protagonists deserved to get eaten by alien hordes . This film is no different and is a film I despise for the same reason as ATTACK THE BLOCK If you're going to have a film where the protagonists are going to be fighting for their lives at least craft some type of characterization that will have the audience empathize with their predicament . Here I didn't know anything about the villain in the background stalking the teenagers . All I knew was that he was probably doing the gene pool a massive favour Some commentators have criticised the " Estuary English / chav speak " dialogue but if we had the Royal Shakespeare Company speaking in pedantic Queens English this wouldn't have made any difference because most of the dialogue is downed out in a poor sound mix with some very dire muzak on the soundtrack just to remind the audience that this is a horror film In summary this is one of those films that will alienate and outrage everyone from the most rabidly right wing reader of The Daily Mail to the most left leaning Guardinista . When you're watching a horror film and the most likable character is the villain that must be seen as a fundamental failure

I loved this film. It was a very tense and very real horror. I was hooked from begin to end. The death scenes were great and very realistic for a change. I was actually interested by the characters, which in most horrors I'm not. I didn't expect to care about a group of hoodies but in the end you do. I felt that Jacob Anderson (Lloyd) and Jesscia Barden (Kelly) shone through as two very strong young actors. The setting was very atmospheric and grim. The sound and music also added a great deal and really heightened the tension throughout the film. I'd be keen to see if they are making a sequel as the film leaves you wanting more. 10 stars

What's with the recent spate of British urban thriller movies set in and around abandoned inner city tower blocks? In 2012 we've had CITADEL, TOWER BLOCK, ATTACK THE BLOCK and now COMEDOWN.COMEDOWN is the least creatively accomplished or inventive of the trend so far. It relies on the slasher movie staple of wayward teens targeted by a serial killing maniac. They have to fight for their lives, and you just know that for most of them it's a losing battle.Audience sympathy is not enhanced by the fact that the teens in question are portrayed as a barely literate group of alcohol-swigging, drug taking hooligans with low IQs, criminal tendencies and repugnant personalities. Their nemesis is equally as unattractive, subhuman and just as unsympathetic, so there's really no one to root for. Rather than hoping for anyone to survive or prevail, I found myself wishing for them to hurry up and get killed so that the film could move more quickly towards its (foregone) conclusion.If someone has a mind to make this sort of movie, at least have the sense and common decency to attempt some level of character development and provide the audience with some individuals they have a chance of identifying with or emotionally investing in. I can't imagine even the most depraved brain-dead inner city delinquent hoodie scumbag finding anyone in this film in the least way appealing. What chance, then, have the rest of us got? It looks cheap – probably because it is – but the tower block itself is well rendered in all its decaying grotesqueness, and some of the death scenes rise just slightly above the mundane whilst still remaining largely uninspired.Finally, COMEDOWN is probably an apt title. The film feels just like one.