Two out of
Five stars
Running time:
91 mins
The Cottage is well acted and has a decent premise but the characters are unlikeable and it's neither funny enough to work as a comedy nor scary enough to work as a horror.
What's it all about?
Directed by rising British star Paul Andrew Williams (who made the excellent London to Brighton), The Cottage stars Andy Serkis and Reece Shearsmith as David and Peter, two brothers who arrive at an isolated cottage immediately after kidnapping David's gangland boss's daughter, Tracey (Jennifer Ellison). When their co-conspirator, Tracey's dim-witted step-brother Andrew (Steve O'Donnell). arrives, the brothers quickly realise that he's been followed by two of the boss's vicious henchmen (Logan Wong and Jonathan Chan-Pensley) and panic sets in.
However, it turns out that that's the least of their worries - for one thing, Tracey is every bit as violent as the henchmen and foul-mouthed to boot. And for another, something else seems to be lurking in the darkness outside.
The Good
The acting is decent enough and Jennifer Ellison certainly gives good bitch, as they say, but it's hard to care about any of the characters so you don't really mind when bad things start happening to them. That said, there is the occasional good line of dialogue.
The Bad
The poster for the film shows the three leads with their severed heads mounted on a wall, which gives you some idea of the sort of tone to expect here. The main problem is that the supposedly funny bits fall flat and the attempts at grisly horror don't work because we're not emotionally invested in the characters – in fact, you'll spend most of the film wishing at least two of them would just shut the hell up.
Worth seeing?
Ultimately, The Cottage is something of a disappointment, thanks to an uneven tone that fails to deliver either laughs or shocks. Still, if you do end up seeing it, make sure you stay right until the very end, as there's a post-credits scene that clears up at least one gaping plot-hole.