Director: Warren Dudley
Writer: Warren Dudley
Stars: Parry Glasspool, Lucy-Jane Quinlan, Lydia Orange
OK boys and girls, time for another found footage horror movie. Hey-ho, whoop-di-do and hip-hip-hoo-sodding-ray, just what the world needs, another found footage horror movie. This also happens to be another film shot in my manor – following in the footsteps of the underwhelming Nazi Vengeance and decent Darkest Day – with large stretches of it filmed in Newhaven Fort. That would normally inspire a level of benevolence in me, but there’s only so far that goodwill can go and in this case it burnt through pretty darned quickly.
The plot follows the standard Blair Witch Project prototype. A trio of students have to make a documentary feature as part of their Media Studies A-level, the main requirement being for the inclusion of lots of extras (making of docs etc, as though anybody would be remotely interested). They decide upon the newsworthy topic of cyber-bullying, which somehow segues into researching the disappearance of a girl who went missing some months before, something which seems to have generated a complete lack of interest from either the police or her own mother. Their investigations lead them to sordid underbelly of their hometown – something which in Newhaven’s case was much more effectively portrayed in the genuinely horrifying The Great Ecstacy of Thomas Carmicheal – and then to a network of underground tunnels inhabited by a psychotic killer.
Looking at the positives first, in its favour The Cutting Room does manage to recreate the world of its inbetweener protagonists rather well: they’re actually a rather likeable bunch, somewhat hapless friends who spend their time in pubs trying to dream up fascinating projects on which they can waste their time. Parry Glasspool, Lucy-Jane Quinlan and Lydia Orange put in respectable if occassionally inconsistent performances, although the script often calls on them to do the most unlikely of things. And it’s with the script that the problem lies: The Cutting Room is almost entirely devoid of originality or invention, adding absolutely nothing to a sub-genre which has already well outstayed its welcome. It’s not bad, as such, and it’s short enough to avoid being boring, but its just hopelessly forgettable, sinking into a murky swamp of near identikit productions that are unable to distinguish themselves from each other in any way.
The WildEye Rating: 2/10
