Comedown

COMEDOWN is a low rent British horror film set entirely within the confines of a deserted tower block. The gritty realism and the setting made me hope for something along the lines of TOWER BLOCK or ATTACK THE BLOCK, but unfortunately this is nothing like those two (great) movies. Instead it's a cheap slasher, almost entirely devoid of imagination.

Headlining the cast is Jacob Anderson, best known to audiences for his role as Grey Worm in GAME OF THRONES. Anderson and his buddies, including a pregnant girlfriend and an obnoxious type (Adam Deacon, playing firmly to type) hole up in a run-down building to help run a pirate radio station, but their drug-fuelled highs come crashing down when a killer starts picking them off one by one.

COMEDOWN must feature one of the least menacing bad guys ever, and when you learn of his motivations you'll laugh out loud, they're that slim. The kills, which are what most horror fans will watch this for, are relatively tame, and there just isn't much in the way of suspense built along the way. It doesn't help that the dialogue is moronic throughout and that every twist in the script is well-choreographed. Add in some quite terrible cinematography, meaning 95% of this takes place in near blackness, and you have a quite unworthy film.

I would like to start by saying the only reason this movie made it to 3 stars, is solely because it has Jessica Barden. I actually enjoyed the acting and setting in this movie, everything else pretty much missed the mark. I want to say the directing in this movie wasn't good. It seemed fairly predictable and not very suspenseful. I feel like I already knew what was going to happen before it happened. The story had potential but lacked so much detail that it was hard to understand why things were happening. I think it is worth the watch, but only if it's out of boredom, not to entertain.

OK, I get why this Comedown only rated a 4.6 here at IMDb, as it is true it's a stock premise, that is, teenagers somehow exposed getting hunted down one by one in the tradition of numerous other slasher flicks. I'm giving it a 10. Comedown is a truly excellent slasher flik. The psychopath is truly creepy, and chillingly prepared for his night of slaughter, and the Director's handling of how he is introduced carefully scene by scene is a championship of editing. The murders are brilliant, each one carefully choreographed, with great shock value. Some classic horror images here. The tension is palpable. Even before the kids are in danger the delicate dynamics of their social wiles just kind of screams 'this is trouble'. It was a great way to lead in. The actors are all accomplished. The characters themselves are not easy to enjoy, but they are very authentic, helped along by a jabbing script. Then there is the grand set itself, with the lighting and texture throughout being powerful. The sense of danger is just screaming off the walls. This movie has all the heart pounding guts of a really, really outrageous dare, and I loved every minute.

A grimy & gritty low-budget London based urban slasher where a bunch of vile street rats get killed off one by one in a rundown abandoned Block of flats & it's a pretty bad film because the gang are vile & the type in real life you want to get killed off!!!

An all British urban version of an American Slasher & here i rooted for the KILLER!!!!

I watch a lot of horror/slasher films and most of them I get about half way through before I turn off. Comedown had absolutely nothing new to add to the genre and the characters were pretty unlikeable, yet I found I managed to sit through the whole thing without actually turning it off.

A bunch of pretty horrible teenagers break into a condemned London tower block in order to set up a pirate radio station. However, there's the obligatory psycho happens to already be living there. And, unsurprisingly, he doesn't take too kindly to their intrusion. What follows is the typical 'hunt 'em and kill 'em' scenario.

Although the killer looks like he's already starred in I Know What You Did Last Summer, he's played by Geoff Bell, an actor who always puts in a good performance (even if he does only just squeak in this case!). The rest of the cast are basically 'killer-fodder.' You won't find yourself shedding too many tears when they start getting hacked to death. One girl is pregnant and her boyfriend is a reformed convict, so I think we're supposed to root for them. Jessica Barden, who plays a particularly 'chavvy' young lady, actually puts in a pretty good performance.

There's nothing new here and what little budget the film had seems to have been wasted on using computers to add extra blood in. Personally, I'd rather they'd have simply squirted a couple of bottles of tomato ketchup here and there, as the computer effects look a little bit too fake.

Like I say, nothing too new here, but strangely watchable and quite good fun in its genre.