Propellorpants

Have kept meaning to watch this and the trailer seemed interesting. I guess Le Fanu's book has it's fans and not having read it, I can't tell if it's a loyal adaptation but, oh boy, it's a slow watch. For me, the lead is very plummy and a bit of a cliched "I will certainly do as I wish, good Sir!" kind of character that grinds after a while. There's a lot of legal shenanigans that went over my head and a back story about the lead's father that you really have to concentrate to understand - much of the plot is obfuscated by the archaic phrasing of Le Fanu's language that means that key points in the family's history are missed if you aren't listening intently. The whole inheritance thing was portrayed a hundred times better by Dicken's Bleak House than this stiff, abstruse plodder. In the end, I felt annoyed that I'd given it two hours of my life.

For some reason, filmland is convinced that rural life must be pretty weird and those unsupervised oddballs who choose to live in villages are all kinky pagans. These clichés also abound in this hit and miss offering. Stay in the city if you wanna be safe, kids - Satan loves a thatched roof! : /

This particular take of verdant supernaturalism comes across as a blend of League of Gentlemen meets The Green Man. There's a quasi religious feel about the whole thing that's applied with a crude brush - the fruit of the forbidden tree, the crucifixion etc., - and this is probably key to understanding what's going on; I say 'understanding' because following what's going on here will be an imprecise art for the majority of viewers who, confident that they know what's going on in the first 75% of the film will find themselves tossed into a pretentious casserole of symbolism and gore in the final stretch. After that, it's anyone's guess what's happening.

Having endured the increasingly complex storyline, there was meagre reward with the final scene and little in the way of explanation. Instead there is a daft shorthand version of resolution. You might remember it but I doubt you'll understand it.

Resorting to the usual inbred killer memes of the superior The Hills Have Eyes, this plot-hole ridden clunker opens with a promising first act before descending into the usual cliches; what was that noise in the basement? Shall I explore this dark tunnel? My torch is suddenly not working! I've dropped my phone! I've tripped over while running away! I can't get my keys in the door when being chased! The police don't believe me!

As well as countless plot holes, there's a pointless flashback before the second half lapses into a routine monster chase and physics defying stupidity, undoing all the good work of the first half.