[Once
again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for
the entire month of October. I've done this the last few years on The
Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded (usually with the
help of a few other writers). Other times I didn't. We'll see if I can
pull it off this year.]
Not all fears involve matters of life and death. Some are
far more mundane. Like, for instance, the fear and dread many young adult to
middle age liberals feel about going home for the holidays and being forced to
spend time with relatives whose ideology is considerably more conservative. It’s
a small fear in the greater scheme of things, but one far more likely to be
realized than, say, getting eaten by a shark or stalked by a slasher. Also,
small fears can serve as precursors to larger, more dangerous ones. That’s the
vein of horror mined by British indie horror film AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS, and it does so to great effect.
The film begins with Nick Milgram (Sam Gittins) and his
middle eastern girlfriend Annji (Neerja Naik) arriving at his parents’ home for
Christmas. Mom Beth (Abigail Cruttenden) is slightly taken aback, but more or
less accepting of Annji. Dad Tony (Grant Masters), however, is clearly not
pleased, and grandpa Alfred (David Bradley) is openly hostile and racist. Nick’s
pregnant sister Kate ((Holly Weston) is only casual in her racism, but she has
plenty of contempt and envy for her brother. Her boyfriend Scott (Kris Saddler)
is just kind of a dumb mook. From the outset, the odds of a pleasant holiday
are not in Nick and Annji’s favor.
Not surprisingly, dinner is a bit tense. But things only get
worse when everyone wakes up the next morning to find the house completely encased
in a strange black barrier, and the TV broadcasting only an alert to “await
further instructions”. And then the instructions start to come. And things get
really bad.
Nick, who is resented by most of his family for always
thinking he knows better, is resistant to following the increasingly dubious
instructions from the TV. Tony, however, has more of an authoritarian streak.
He’s convinced that what he’s seeing on the TV are orders from the government
and must be followed. Even when Anjii, a medical professional, explains why
certain of those orders might not be safe to follow. Tony (and of course Alfred)
are quick to not only dismiss her, but to view her with outright suspicion.
While there are certainly any number of parallels to current
events here in the United States, AWAIT
FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS is distinctively British. It’s kind of like an episode
of ‘Dr. Who’ in which the Doctor never shows up, and humanity has to try and save
the day on their own. Any Whovian can guess how that turns out.
Working from a deft and insightful script by Gavin Williams,
director Johnny Kevorkian keeps the tension and the stakes high. While this is absolutely
a horror/science fiction film, it always stays grounded and focused on its
characters, and the ways human nature so often leads to bad ends. Add George
Romero and Rod Serling to the list of apt comparisons. The budget is relatively
low, but when the script does call for special effects they don’t come across
as cheap or shoddy. There’s not a lot of violence or gore, but that doesn’t
make for a film that is any less unsettling.
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