Hush (2009) Movie Review
Written By: SN
Edited By: Grave Reviews Staff
Film Information
Director: Mark Tonderai
Producers: Peter Carlton, Hugo Heppel, Lizzie Francke, Will Clarke
Writer: Mark Tonderai
Date Released: March 13, 2009
Cast:
William Ash as Zakes Abbot
Christine Bottomley as Beth
Andreas Wisniewski as The Tarman
Rating = 1/5 Graves
***May contain some spoilers***
Synopsis
Driving down a dark road in the middle of the night, Zakes (William Ash) and Beth (Christine Bottomley) won’t stop bickering. Zakes being stuck in a dead-end job and Beth trying to confess her infidelity to her longtime boyfriend. Their constant bickering comes to a halt after seeing a naked woman at the back of the white truck; Zakes alerts the police but Beth insists to probe some more. The young couple makes a pit stop and after yet another fight that ended with them parting ways, Beth disappears. That is, until Zakes spots a familiar white truck and decides to follow it onto a human trafficking den in the middle of nowhere.
Gore Factor
For the most part of Hush (2009) a majority of the film feels like a cat-and-mouse chase between the protagonist and antagonist. But with the addition of a few shocking twists, the film was able to insert some gore scenes like the classic pen in the eye stabbing and a religious reference of Zakes waking up with his hands nailed down on a hardwood floor.
The Grave Review
This British film falls a few sandwiches short from becoming the horror picnic that we all want. Most of this is attributed to its poorly written and slow-paced story line (despite it being a human trafficking movie). Since we’re on the topic, the motives behind the character’s actions don’t always make sense like when Zakes went inside the women’s restroom and even got on top of a toilet to look inside a cubicle hoping to find his girlfriend, Beth. Seriously, who in their right mind would do that?
Add to that, the often too dark atmosphere and out of sync musical scoring of the film failed to communicate a sense of terror or paranoia to the viewers. With one-too-many shaky shots coming from weird angles, it seemed like writer-director Tonderai was trying too hard to prove himself artistic in his debut film.
But with a low budget and a few logistic restrictions, Tonderai had to make do with what he had, especially in the acting department. With his obscure talents of main and supporting actors, they all seemed to be scrambling to deliver raw emotions as the characters they were portraying and only came across as overacting – kind of like what you see in your afternoon soap operas.
Moreover, the most anxiety-inducing part of the film would be its most stereotypically-written one, which is when Zakes was hiding in the restroom from the hooded killer. But, the film was able to put in its unique twist by having Zakes literally hang from behind the cubicle door to get away from the killer. Of course, he falls flat and the killer hears him but just when he was about to get caught, two armed officers come in and Zakes was able to duck out by following them out of the restroom.
With the aforementioned reasons, Grave Reviews give Hush (2009) one grave out of five graves.
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