Film: Spiderhole
Year of production: 2010
UK Release date: 21st March 2011
Distributor: Soda
Certificate: 18
Running time: 82 mins
Director: Daniel Simpson
Starring: Amy Noble, Emma Griffiths Malin, George Maguire, John Regan, Rueben-Henry Biggs
Genre: Horror
Format: DVD
Country of Production: Republic of Ireland
Language: English
Writer/director Daniel Simpson’s low-budget shock horror feature brings a whole new meaning to the term breaking and entering. A nightmarish vision of fear and darkness, Simpson has created a feature of claustrophobic proportions. A message to all students out there looking for accommodation: take note!
Spiderhole focuses on four art students: Molly, Zoe, Luke and Toby (Emma Griffiths Malin, Amy Noble, George Maguire and Reuben-Henry Biggs) who are searching for a new place to stay for their next term. The group decide the best way to do this on a student budget is to become squatters, as its “unlawful not illegal,” and a perfect opportunity to party, smoke ‘spliffs’ and have sex. With the aid of their bohemian camper van, the foursome go in search of their new home. After a few failed break-ins and impenetrable properties, they stop outside an impressive mansion in an upmarket district of West London and decide to break in.
The four students soon realise the error of their ways as events take a dark turn. The house they believed to be empty seems to be home to a rather angry tenant, an individual who is hell-bent on punishing them through a host of sickeningly demented games. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…
The house is generally creepy with its dilapidated interior, long winding corridors and a labyrinth of hidden rooms. Credence must go to the set designer as the house’s dank and gloomy atmosphere really does take the viewer out of their comfort zone. It is as if we are a million miles away from the swanky West London streets and we now inhabit an alternate reality. The four students unpack their belongings and set up a small fire in the living room to unwind before they explore the rest of the house in the morning. In typical haunted house fashion, there are strange noises coming from the first floor, but they are immediately dismissed as creaking pipes by Toby.
The supernatural tone that the film initially holds is disposed of quickly, when the group awaken and realise that they have been drugged and locked inside the building, with the doors and windows covered and bolted from the inside by large metal barriers. As the panic sets in, the group of friends discover more haunting remnants of previous visitors including blood-stains, photographs and scratch marks on the walls. The impending claustrophobia is disturbingly brought to life through Simpson’s camera work. Everything from the long, lingering shots of the house interior to the frantic cuts between the characters as the panic sets in are masterfully executed, and teamed with creepy sound effects and a good score providing enough tension and atmosphere throughout. The lighting is obscure and, much like the characters, we find ourselves in a very dark and unsettling place.
With the supernatural tone subsided, the true nature of the film is exposed – one of brutal, sexualised violence. The gore is somewhat grotesque and you find yourself wincing away from the bodily mutilations. It takes on a very Saw-esque tone relied heavily upon with this idea of games and torture, all encompassed within a medical/surgical framework (the sadistic captor has a host of surgical tools and a waiting room before his own personal operating theatre). The effects are somewhat unimpressive with bodily expenditures looking like pieces of fake rubber, but this hardly deters from the overall shock factor. It is undeniably deplorable and barbaric, but nothing entirely original. The ‘torture porn’ genre is not so much a dying genre, rather one that has run its course through a whole host of successful films, including the Saw franchise and The Devil’s Rejects. The impression here is that the gore is intended to demonstrate depravity, rather than provide any new outlets to depict the genre.
The cast is made up of relatively unknown British actors. The cliché’s are there but in moderation. The four main characters of Molly, Zoe, Toby and Luke are all performed extremely well given the cast’s inexperience in feature films. Yes, there are some improvements that could be made with the Brit slang script, but the actors work with what they have. They each play their part with nerve shredding realism; you watch them and empathise – you strangely feel that that is the way you would behave in a similar situation – from anger to fear to panic and back again. The sudden change in tone and mood trigger’s a very human response, something the four actors achieve, that they are losing hope. The claustrophobic setting of the house fuels their fear, which turns into anger at one another as they try and pass the blame and work out their next move. The film highlights physical violence but also quite smartly the mental threat, and the damaging nature of fear, something that is far more interesting to watch. John Regan’s Captor is good, providing a realistic and sadistic killer, far from the excessive caricature nature of say Freddy Krueger or Jigsaw, yet his motives are weak at best.
The only criticism is that we don’t get enough time to truly feel for their plight, as the characters are thrown into the action and are fighting for their lives within the first fifteen minutes. Although a deliberate choice made by the director to create a feature about pace, survival and indeed gore, the decision somewhat falls short - we just don’t know enough about the characters to really care for them. We get odd references, like the first scene showing Molly in a doctor’s office being told she has a case of heartburn, to a very slight nod towards Toby’s welding experience –hardly enough to create a detailed opinion on a character.
Budget clearly isn’t everything; Simpson has created a feature free from overtly obvious CGI effects and opted for a more subtle approach. The film’s naturalistic lighting and ominous score provides a very gut-wrenching realism. And although the scares are substituted for blood and guts, it is still a very uncomfortable watch. Yes, you know exactly what is going to happen, but nevertheless the film delves into the psychological side of fear and terror that stands up against the depraved amounts of blood and guts and offers 80 minutes of nail-biting viewing. Squatters beware. LF
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