The Blood Lands

This is a run of the mill type of home invasion type thriller. It isn't bad, just same ol stuff. The one thing that really caught my attention with this film was the lead actress. I'm not sure of her name but I know that she was in "The Woman." I thought that she did a fantastic job in that film. I'm not sure of which film came first but I like that she was able to show a great deal of versatility between these two roles.

It's Sarah and Ed's first night in their new home in the Scottish countryside. Coming from the City they had a lot of money to invest in a property that the people from the surrounding area could not afford themselves.

It's a beautiful setting and the movie portrays an air of the supernatural but that's a red herring. It's actually a home invasion type movie.

The two main characters are absolutely awful from the start. Sarah is the most irritating character I think I have ever come across! The relationship between Sarah and Ed doesn't feel believable at all, there's no chemistry, no closeness that you would expect to see in a couple moving into a new home. Sarah is a nagging, selfish and irritating woman, if I was Ed I would have let her move to Scotland by herself.

As they go to bed on their first night Sarah is unnerved and hears noises. She pesters poor Ed to death and ends up outside where they find a random pig. After going back in the house Sarah hears yet more noises and again nags Ed to death to go investigate. The poor man does and doesn't come back. So then she goes looking for him.

What follows is one of the most intense cat and mouse games ever. It's such as shame that the two main characters are so badly written because the baddies and the stalking going on is/are brilliant. I couldn't bear to watch half the time.

I liked the ending, you couldn't have predicted it.

White Settlers or The Blood Lands (I personally think the second title is more appropriate) is really a case of too much, too soon.

The atmosphere of isolation and creepiness set up so beautifully early on in this film is extinguished prematurely. Its a case of too much, too soon, with restraint inexplicably giving way to what can best to described as "impatient", rather clumsy storytelling.

Its a shame too, as this title had considerable potential.The characterization is good, the overall premise is sound, the cinematography is excellent and the lead actors do a fine job. Five out of ten from me.

Well , I thought I would give this film a chance as its a brit flick and I am British.

You can tell straight away that the locations are not in Scotland.

So anyway I waited and waited for the film to unfold and hope that some kind of story would unravel.

Instead I just lost 70 odd minutes of my life that I will never get back.

My advice is give this film a miss.

Im only writing more lines to finish the ten lines needed to post.

The film only deserves my review so maybe I can save others the time I wasted watching it.

Due to the low ratings I didn't expect much from White Settlers but then I read a couple reviews and so I thought I'll give it a go because most of the time the low ratings for horror movies on IMDb are an absolute farce. I saw so many good movies that were rated below five stars that I don't believe anything anymore on here. And for this movie it's again completely underrated. The movie starts slow but once the creepy things happen you are in for an old school suspense thriller/horror. The actors might not be well known but they certainly did their job good. For a low budget movie it has certainly nothing to envy from big budget movies. I'm glad I didn't believe the ratings again here on IMDb because I truly enjoyed this movie. Certainly worth a watch if you like creepy masks and suspense.