"The Cottage"

Seen on: March 6, 2008

The players: Director: Paul Andrew Williams, Writer: Paul Andrew Williams, Cast: Andy Serkis, Jennifer Ellison, Johnny Harris, Logan Wong, Doug Bradley

Facts of interest: Paul Andrew Williams also directed "London to Brighton."

The plot: After two brothers kidnap a crime boss's daughter, they encounter a maniacal farmer who's hungry for blood.

Our quick thoughts: The art of the horror comedy is in juxtaposing terror with humor until both are intensified into hysteria (examples: "An American Werewolf in London," "Evil Dead 2," "Scream"). "The Cottage," Paul Andrew Williams’ follow-up to his debut 2006 feature, "London to Brighton," is neither funny nor especially frightening, and it sure as hell isn’t art. In fact, it’s not even good trash.

Williams has taken the staples of the low-budget slasher movie—small cast, limited locations, minimum plot, lots of gore—and given them a supposedly “post-modernist” spin of grisly absurdity. The story involves the bungled kidnapping of a crime boss’s daughter (Jennifer Ellison) by two brothers (Andy Serkis and Reece Shearsmith), who hide away in a lonely cottage in the forest and run afoul of a seriously disfigured serial killer.

"The Cottage" isn’t Grand Guignol slapstick like "Evil Dead 2," or sly genre deconstruction like "Scream," and it’s certainly not a harmless spoof like "Scary Movie." It’s basically a well-constructed B-movie, complete with (extremely realistic) scenes of brutality and dismemberment which are unaccountably played for laughs. Apparently Williams (who also wrote the script, what there is of it) thinks seeing people writhing in agony is somehow amusing in and of itself.

Freaky quote: "What the hell is this place?"  – Andy Serkis

The final word: Since Williams hasn’t provided much by way of jokes, I can tell the violence is meant to be funny simply because it’s not meant to be taken seriously. And if seeing a big-breasted blonde having her face sliced in half with a shovel is your idea of a smile, by all means go and see the film. "London to Brighton" was a thoughtful, disturbing work on the repercussions of violence. "The Cottage" seems to have been made by someone with the sensibilities of Ted Bundy.

(Editor's note: As of now, no release date has been confirmed for "The Cottage" in the United States. We'll keep you posted on any updates.)