The Cottage

Conceived before London to Brighton but only brought to term after its runaway success (and daddy’s BAFTA for Most Promising Newcomer), Paul Andrew Williams’ second-born is a more playful but equally vicious little blighter.

The ever-watchable Serkis is David, a small cog in the London underworld who persuades his drippy, moth-fearing brother Peter (The League of Gentlemen’s Shearsmith) to help him snatch a crime boss’s stepdaughter and hold her hostage at a cottage in deepest Darkshire (actual locations: the Isle of Man and Yorkshire).

David’s plan begins to unravel immediately. Far from being a whimpering wreck, Tracey (Ellison) is a fiery, potty-mouthed Scouser who’s more of a man than Peter will ever be.

It was also a mistake to involve her idiot brother Andrew (Steven O’Donnell), who not only forgets to check the ransom money, but is followed into the countryside by two of his father’s henchmen.

Luckily, the blade-loving goons never get the chance to give the kidnappers the chop. The bad news is that the chap from the neighbouring farm has a particularly effective way of dealing with strangers and trespassers.

“Summink’s not right,” observes David on passing a body strung up in the woods. He’s not wrong.

Perhaps introducing its homicidal malcontent too soon, the film makes a rather abrupt switch from Ruthless People mode to Texas-style massacre (albeit with traditional farming implements being preferred to power tools).

The effect is double-edged, ramping up the gore quotient while draining away suspense.

Thankfully, Williams and his cast overcome this by toying with all those lunatic-on-the-loose conventions: the eye and the keyhole; the creepy farmhouse full of newspaper clippings; the loudmouth who needs to shut her trap…

In-joke spotters will also note Doug ‘Pinhead from Hellraiser’ Bradley among the xenophobic villagers, the scene literally ripped out of Predator, and the post-credits epilogue that should appeal to anyone with an appreciation of British theatre.

And where the like-minded Severance bled out long before the curtain fell, the splatter and titters keep coming until the bitter (and twisted) end.

With all the meaty goodness of Neil Marshall’s Dog Soldiers, The Cottage offers solid Brit-horror nourishment.

Elliott Noble

Elliott Noble