Cherry Tree Lane

Like hoodie-horror Eden Lake before it, Cherry Tree Lane attempts to scare the viewer by tapping into their innate fear of the yob generation, depicting a law-abiding, middle-class, suburban couple at the mercy of a vicious gang of 'yoofs' (before the tables are eventually turned for a brief but satisfying slice of retribution).

Writer/director Paul Andrew Williams handles the material confidently enough (certainly better than the dreadful black comedy of his previous film The Cottage) and commands solid performances from his cast, young and old, but while I cannot deny that the film packs a powerful emotional wallop, largely thanks to its unsettling sense of realism, I do feel that the extremely thin plot isn't quite strong enough to sustain an entire feature film. Even at a scant 74 minutes (according to my DVD), there's a fair amount of padding; the movie would have been more successful had Williams added a bit more 'meat' to his narrative, or if the whole thing had just been a bit shorter.

Another hoody film.

A boring couple have their home invaded by some scumbags looking to exact revenge on their son. The usual tying up and degradation of the main characters takes place. The problem is I didn't care about them. The characters were so clichéd and one dimensional that I felt nothing for them.

The lead thug is just a ridiculous ball of unthinking testosterone that he's unbelievable. Couple this with his sidekick thug with a heart and it just gets stupider. I spent the whole film just hating the main thug, which I suppose was the intent. But I was just waiting to see him die and had no interest with anything else. Then just when you think the limits of believability can't be stretched any further, the thug's girlfriend shows up with her little brother in tow to watch. I think even an idiot would doubt a school child's ability to keep his mouth shut about witnessing the events which take place, but they let him stay all the same.

I'm not really a fan of the this kind of film but I had enjoyed the directors other films so I thought I'd check it out. Now I've seen it I never want to see it again.

Doing a bit of channel hopping tonight and we came across this movie. My other half almost instantly wanted to change channels as the description of a psychological slasher piece involving some revengeful teenagers didn't appeal to her on any level. I protested and said let's at least watch the start and see how it develops. And I'm so glad we did.

It's a quite tense and edgy piece that could easily be a stage show, all very contained. The acting is pretty good, the script is basic but it does the job, the plot is nothing more than you'd expect. Yet somehow the whole thing is greater then the sum of its pieces in my opinion.

Even though I don't have any great affection for the characters, I found myself rooting for them, or laughing with them, or sighing with them. I think this film does moral terpitude very well, I think it largely avoids cliché, even though the subject might feel that way sometimes. I don't know how I missed this three years ago, but I'm glad to have caught up with it now.

Elements of Straw Dogs perhaps, although this feature manages the central dilemma of that horror in a much more intelligent fashion. I think that's what I enjoyed the most really, the way it did horror through implication.

I was tricked into watching this film by a review, so I feel obligated to give my own so there will be no more casualties..!

This movie can not really be called a thriller: there is no real suspense and nothing is surprising;you can tell how things will evolve from the first minute that the actual "plot" starts.

I actually fast forward it many times and compelled to rerun it, only to find that nothing had happened in between.

All in all, this was a wooden, disturbing presentation of a lower class youth, with a completely unsuccessful attempt to portray a dysfunctional family, lacking all definitions of any meaning of film.

This is a typical home invasion type movie but the screenplay stuff was not so strong enough to hold the story.

The whole story happens inside a house. So the main revenge reference was just missing.

Acting was just OK.

The whole film seems like one scene just developed in a not so interesting manner.

I would say last house on the left and the strangers were good compared to this.

Just don't watch this with some expectations .

I would give 4 on 10