A Voice of Reason

Rating: 3/10 (17 July 2005)

I don't want to rain on anybody's parade here, but this film is not very good. If it were a newspaper it would be the Sun. Sexy women, crap jokes, poor story telling, a couple of stabs at thrilling its audience, all wrapped up in something that thinks its done a good job, but is actually a good example of why the public should not be allowed to read.
I enjoyed Dog Soldiers as much as the next man, but with this film we have a collection of not very good actresses (all bar two, Juno and Sam), who have a sub-par script. The setup scenes fail to convince that these charactersare friends, let alone alive! They are dull and hammy, cliché-ing their way through what should be an emotional rollercoster ride, but is instead a boring stroll down the pier.
As for the direction, well, after looking at some of the reviews on here, i think I must have stumbled into the wrong cinema screen. The film I watched was badly directed. Thats right, badly. Given the awesome setting of this film we should be on the edge of our seats throughout, but instead the best Marshal can do is throw hundreds of jumps scares at you. I'm not against this kind of scare tactic, after all it worked well in Jaws and The Sixth Sense, but here it is the only scare we get, repeatedly.
*Spoilers*
There is also a complete lack of logic in much of the story, the creatures are blind why? Even moles have limited vision. If they are blind who on earth drew that cave painting, and why did it require a flare to look at? Surely the torch in the teachers hand was enough to spot the second entrance (that the other characters couldn't even understand, "Does that mean there's another way out?", please, is anyone that stupid). The expositionary dialogue was appalling, the characters might as well of stood up, introduced themselves, their profession and their relation to other characters at the start. To be honest, for the number of shoddy 'jump out of the dark, whilst a loud noise booms' scares in this film, Neil Marshall might as well of sat next to you in the cinema and shouted "Bleh!" every now and again. Its a cheap way of getting shocks, true horror creates that out of atmosphere, character and tension, all things that this film lacks.
*End of Spoilers*
This film was real let down, and I didn't even expect much after seeing the trailer. It was badly handled and even worsely scripted. A film that could have been a neat entry into the genre of high tension horror, instead becomes a clichéd story with dubious plotting, awfully directed set piece moments and shoddy gore scenes that wish they were the Evil Dead.
Do yourself a favour, watch Dog Soldiers again, it may not be great but at least you don't come out lamenting British cinema's fall below mediocrity.