I saw this film as part of the Imagine film festival (SF/fantasy/horror) Amsterdam 2012. The synopsis on the festival website suggested that we could expect a lot of blood, splatter, chainsaw handling, etcetera. Those who love that, will have plenty of it, plus some very creative variants thereof. But there is much more to it in this film.
The first unusual aspect is the composition of the group that chooses a remote village as their temporary location. We witness the arrival of two coaches and an assorted mix of former delinquents, all planning to have a didactic weekend together. They expect to be alone with themselves in the countryside, undisturbed by others, just being busy with teamwork assignments and physical labor. Secondly, from the very beginning we observe worlds of difference between the two coaches in how they handle situations. And thirdly (last but not least), the delinquents themselves are very unequal in their backgrounds and the severity of crimes that brought them there in the first place. This micro cosmos in itself suffices as ample building blocks for an assortment of plots.
And then there are the villagers. The title of this film says it all: we can expect some inhabitants to be (what we euphemistically call) mentally challenged, or at least showing abnormal behavior in the broadest sense of the word. They may be harmless against people they know, or those knowing how to handle them. But you can expect the unexpected when meeting strangers. We see, for example, that a completely natural action to order food and beverages in the one and only local pub, leads to very unusual reactions from the locals. And the country cottage they had planned to serve as a base station for their weekend activities, is less than comfortably furnished too. Nevertheless, we see a promising start when they together clean up their temporary home, trying to make the best of it.
Given the above list of ingredients, one can expect almost everything regarding further developments. Suffice to say here (no details, to prevent spoilers) that a happy ending seems farther and farther away with each hour of their stay in that village. Coaches and delinquents have already enough on their plate to make the weekend a success. And spurious confrontations with the villagers don't help to achieve that, rather the contrary.
Not unusual in this kind of film is that a considerable number of the locals dies. What I did not expect, however, is that all our "good guys" die in the process too, one even more miserably than the other. That neither the coaches nor the delinquents survives it all, may give rise to a bit of disappointment. It leaves us no one with whom to celebrate some sort of a happy ending. The finale is thus devoid of any chance for us to get emotionally involved with at least one of them, someone who we all had hopes for to eventually leave the premises unharmed and live happily ever after.
A few notes from the final Q&A: This film took 26 days for the shooting. They had Strawdogs in their mind all along as an example to follow in its footsteps. The budget was "ridiculously" low (the amount was not revealed to us, however).
All in all, I was not disappointed in the net result. Nice ingredients, but the resulting flavors are not in balance, due to some scenes being a bit over the top in gore-ness (is that a word?). On the other hand, given the IMDb synopsis "a blood-soaked, deliriously warped nightmare", no one can reasonably complain. Most viewers will find themselves somewhere in between. I see this confirmed in already existing IMDb reviews, mostly controversial, varying from very bad to very good.
The first unusual aspect is the composition of the group that chooses a remote village as their temporary location. We witness the arrival of two coaches and an assorted mix of former delinquents, all planning to have a didactic weekend together. They expect to be alone with themselves in the countryside, undisturbed by others, just being busy with teamwork assignments and physical labor. Secondly, from the very beginning we observe worlds of difference between the two coaches in how they handle situations. And thirdly (last but not least), the delinquents themselves are very unequal in their backgrounds and the severity of crimes that brought them there in the first place. This micro cosmos in itself suffices as ample building blocks for an assortment of plots.
And then there are the villagers. The title of this film says it all: we can expect some inhabitants to be (what we euphemistically call) mentally challenged, or at least showing abnormal behavior in the broadest sense of the word. They may be harmless against people they know, or those knowing how to handle them. But you can expect the unexpected when meeting strangers. We see, for example, that a completely natural action to order food and beverages in the one and only local pub, leads to very unusual reactions from the locals. And the country cottage they had planned to serve as a base station for their weekend activities, is less than comfortably furnished too. Nevertheless, we see a promising start when they together clean up their temporary home, trying to make the best of it.
Given the above list of ingredients, one can expect almost everything regarding further developments. Suffice to say here (no details, to prevent spoilers) that a happy ending seems farther and farther away with each hour of their stay in that village. Coaches and delinquents have already enough on their plate to make the weekend a success. And spurious confrontations with the villagers don't help to achieve that, rather the contrary.
Not unusual in this kind of film is that a considerable number of the locals dies. What I did not expect, however, is that all our "good guys" die in the process too, one even more miserably than the other. That neither the coaches nor the delinquents survives it all, may give rise to a bit of disappointment. It leaves us no one with whom to celebrate some sort of a happy ending. The finale is thus devoid of any chance for us to get emotionally involved with at least one of them, someone who we all had hopes for to eventually leave the premises unharmed and live happily ever after.
A few notes from the final Q&A: This film took 26 days for the shooting. They had Strawdogs in their mind all along as an example to follow in its footsteps. The budget was "ridiculously" low (the amount was not revealed to us, however).
All in all, I was not disappointed in the net result. Nice ingredients, but the resulting flavors are not in balance, due to some scenes being a bit over the top in gore-ness (is that a word?). On the other hand, given the IMDb synopsis "a blood-soaked, deliriously warped nightmare", no one can reasonably complain. Most viewers will find themselves somewhere in between. I see this confirmed in already existing IMDb reviews, mostly controversial, varying from very bad to very good.