For a low budget British horror film, COMMUNITY has potential, it's true. It's a grittily realistic little movie in which the budget fits the storyline, chronicling the adventures of a couple of student film-makers who decide to do a segment on a local run-down council estate. Unfortunately for them, their college project soon brings them into contact with some very unsavoury individuals indeed.
COMMUNITY boasts an absolutely wonderful location in its depiction of British at its worst: grubby, run-down streets, overrun by feral youths and occupied by adults who have more in common with some of our simian cousins than the human race. There are some truly icky ideas behind this, and some bizarre characterisations (like the transvestite) which stick in your mind.
A shame that it all falls apart in the second half. The first half boasts an effective atmospheric set-up, with lots of foreboding, but the second half reverts to type: a couple of people trying to escape their captors, and nothing else besides. It's typical 'torture porn' territory, with slim characterisation, although not as gory as it could have been, which is at least something. The acting is only acceptable and the silly twist ending drags things down still further.
