European Films

Of all things, the recent Rowan Atkinson comedy Keeping Mum came to mind when watching the English horror yarn The Living and the Dead from upcoming director Simon Rumley here at the Rotterdam Film Festival. Both are undeniably British productions and feature knives and deaths, though the former is a rather black, comedic flight of fancy whilst the latter is a stylish descent into hell. The Living and the Dead is a huis clos sort of horror story, with the focus squarely on a couple and their only child, who live in an enormous but rather run-down country estate that is the fourth character of the square.

The son James (Leo Bill) is unable to take care of himself and pops pills like a compulsive sweet tooth. His mother Nancy (Kate Fahy) is bedridden and needs help from a nurse for even the most mundane tasks. The father Donald (Roger Lloyd-Pack) tries to keep the estate afloat and take care of his family, but because he has to be away for the former, the latter becomes rather neglected and takes an ugly turn when the son decides that he and not the nurse should take care of his mother since he now is "the man of the house".

Untraditional in that it does not have a clear antagonist that ambushes or chases the protagonists (all of the characters are one and then the other or both at once), the film’s leisurely build up set the tone, using the cavernous country estate to lend the proceedings an eerie feeling from the first shot. When things get ugly, the film does loose some of its originality -- something which even some rather odd dream sequences cannot alleviate. The son’s racing through the house is often shown in fast forward to pumping beats and while I admit that it would slow the film too much to seem him walk through their decrepit family estate at a leisurely pace, the gimmick wears out it welcome after the third of fourth time.

Overall, though, fans of small horror stories and British indies with a dark side will certainly be entertained, though cross-over appeal to non-horror fans will probably be limited.

This film screened as part of the 2006 Rotterdam Film Festival.

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