Skip to content
Dan Owen reviews
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment As premiered on
danowen.blogspot.com
- Cert:
- Running time: 89 minutes
- Year: 2008
- Pressing: 2008
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English
- Widescreen: 2.35:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Rating: 4/10
- Extras:Director’s Commentary, The Making of the Cottage, What Got Chopped, Outtakes,Cast and Crew Biogs, Photo Gallery, Trailer, Audio Description, Easter Eggs
Director:
- Paul Andrew Williams
Producers:
- Ken Marshall and Martin Pope
Writer:
Screenplay:
- Paul Andrew Williams
Music:
- Laura Rossi
Cast:
- David: Andy Serkis
Peter: Reece Shearsmith
Tracey: Jennifer Ellison
Andrew: Steven O’Donnell
The Farmer: Dave Legeno
Chun Yo Fu: Jonathan Chan-Pensley
Old Man: Doug Bradley
Farmer’s Daughter #1: Georgia Groome
Farmer’s Daughter #2: Eden Groome
Smoking Joe: Johnny Harris
Farmer’s Wife: Katy Murphy
Steven: Simon Schatzberger
Daughter #2: Eden Watson
Muk Si San: Logan Wong
Two incompetent brothers kidnap a mobster’s daughter and hold her for ransom in a remote cottage, unaware a local psychopath lives close by…
The unexpected follow-up to Paul Andrew Williams’ gritty debut London To Brighton,horror-comedy The Cottage would ordinarily appear first on a fledglingfilmmaker’s resume…
A pet project of the Portsmouth-born director, it stars comedian Reece Shearsmith(usually obscured by make-up playing nutters in League Of Gentlemen) and Andy Serkis (usually obscured by CGI playing creatures in Peter Jackson movies), as backbitingbrothers Peter and David. Lad’s mag favourite Jennifer Ellison playsTracey, a foulmouthed mobster’s daughter who’s kidnapped by the incompetentbrothers and held for ransom…
What begins as a low-budget comedy focused on its titular locale, soon veers offinto Texas Chain Saw Massacre territory, as the kidnapper/kidnapped dynamicshifts and characters find themselves separated and stumbling into a psycho farmer’sprivate land.
Local country bumpkin stereotypes are taken to the nth degree, as “The Farmer”(Dave Legeno) — resembling a creature from a cut-price zombie movie –arrives for a second-half full of gore, violence and general craziness.
The shift into clichéd sub-Chain Saw is a shame, particularly as the moreinteresting elements of The Cottage are found in its sibling chemistry (Serkis andShearmith could have been the Laurel & Hardy of horror with a better script)and the mob boss background to events (sadly not developed, and forgotten about oncethings turn schlocky). Actually, there’s a final scene that attempts to tie-upboth halves of The Cottage after the credits — but, really, unless you knowit’s there and have the DVD, who would stay ’till after the credits?
Andy Serkis is the standout, clearly relishing doing something left-field andhome-grown — the kind of film his Lord Of The Rings director would havebeen making in the 80s. He’s the irascible straight man, but holds the comedyand drama together very well in the first-half, before the film chooses tofocus more on dimwit Peter’s predicament…
As Peter, Reece Shearsmith basically trots out his League Of Gentlemen tics andaggrieved bitterness, tending to make Peter a bit too unlikeable and aggravating.It’s a fun performance that sometimes hits the right mark, and contains plentyof crackerjack energy, but it’s slightly too exaggerated and cartoon-y. Thatsaid, the character slots into the bizarre second-half much better.
Jennifer Ellison makes a very strong impression at first — glaring from behinda gag, which we soon learn prevented obscenities that will make her Brooksidefans cover their ears. Tracey’s a beautiful bundle of bosomy bad attitude,but the character doesn’t develop or grow from this two-dimension, and eventuallysputters out into nothing. And is it just me, or is Ellison looking a bitbloated and craggy these days? The product of uncomplimentary lighting? Complimentaryairbrushing in the magazines? Or maybe it’s the fact her “latest” photoshootswere taken 5 years ago — keeping her eternally youthful for the readers ofNuts and Zoo?
As an attempt to inject someShaun Of The Dead-style knockabout humour into a mishmash of Evil Dead and Texas Chain Saw Massacre,The Cottage isn’t very successful. It just doesn’t attack anything particularlywell, or transcend its inspirations. The humour is more attuned to Severance‘sdry tone, and while the gore is successfully achieved, there’s nothingimaginative or refreshing about it. It’s all been done in countless knock-offsbefore this.
Overall, The Cottage is a misogynist horror-comedy that isn’t particularlysuccessful at either. Serkis is very good and Shearsmith has his moments, buteverything else is by-the-numbers gross-outs stuck to a script that throws awayits first-half promise (what happened to those creepy locals, led by Hellraiser’sDoug Bradley?) to regurgitate another inbred maniac stalks hapless strangersscenario. Disappointing.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.