Dogged

I was really looking forward to this, I love Folk Horror and I had heard good things, but they were all wrong.

No disrespect to the people involved in making this but it is one of the worst films I have ever had the misfortune of seeing.

It made very little sense, was painfully slow, badly acted and went on for far too long.

There have been a lot of low budget British horror films, some good and some bad, and this is sadly one of the worst, a great example of an effective low budget British horror is The Borderlands. Watch that instead.

A badly shot montage of establishing shots of locations and props, and about two hours of people walking around, occasionally speaking briefly, while nothing happens. A pretty sad state of affairs

A young adult returns to his island home for a funeral and is caught up in shady goings-on. Like most films of this style, the drama works best before the motives are revealed, but this does well to keep the tension to the end. The subject matter pulls few punches.

There are some clunky stereotypes and the script does not always flow, but the locations are used to build a satisfying air of claustrophobia. Limited budget means the cliffs that are central to the story never actually appear, and it is difficult to locate the island geographically - a Shropshire mini cab is presumably used to start the protagonist's journey, not end it.

Although the sound recording has alarming echoes during indoor scenes - some soft furnishings would have helped - the incidental music punches above its weight and lends the film a professionalism it perhaps didn't earn. Incidentally, not the film's fault but the Prime subtitles are appalling.

At almost two hours, the runtime could have been trimmed quite a bit but holds the attention effectively for most of its length. A surprisingly large cast for such a low budget can make it tricky to remember who is who. Overall, though, a good effort with credit to the crew for a job well done.

Not a genre I normally watch but thought I'd give this a go and really enjoyed it. It's dark in places and really thought provoking - found myself still mulling it over and thinking about it the next day after I watched it. It's quite Hitchcock-esque in that there is not a lot of obvious gore and horror on screen but more what your imagination runs away with from the images on screen. Overall a really great film.

Not everybody goes for slow-burning horror films, but I do. So 'Dogged' won't be for everyone. It's a low-budget venture that lasts for nearly two hours. For those who like spectacular, fast-moving jump scares and mind-altering special effects, this probably won't appeal.

Director, producer and co-writer Richard Rowntree's folk horror would have been more effective if its rich and atmospheric camera work was achieved in a grainy filmic texture; here the video causes it to lose its richness somewhat. But make no mistake, 'Dogged' is an immersive experience, and if you go with it, it'll provide you with a rewarding 116 minutes. Funded via Kickstarter, it tells the story of Sam (Sam Saunders) who returns to his coastal island home to attend a funeral. Here, he discovers that things seem to have changed in his absence, and the local ambience has taken on a very sinister tone. Women folk have been relegated to a position of subservience, while their men have claimed a certain unchallenged dominance. Things get darker here on in ... My score is 8 out of 10.