Tommy is a fourteen-year-old boy that is forced to live with his father Mark, after his mother has a nervous breakdown.
He's grieved when he learns that his father is one of several squatters living in an empty council estate destined for demolition, but tries to make the best of it.
Tommy finds himself waking up each night by strange noises and on one occasion, finds that he and all of his belongings have been dragged from one side of the room to the other.
Growing ever more terrified, Tommy tries to talk to his father but finds that his father is becoming ever more bizarre and disturbing in personality........
Setting a supernatural horror/thriller film in a rundown block of flats in an urban area is always, in my humble opinion, a good move, because you already have an element of tension before the main story arc kicks in.
And it really helps that the film has one of the most unsettling opening scenes in recent memory, nothing but a black screen, and a call of distress. It's obviously going to have something to do with the eerie going ones in the block of flats, but it's effective nevertheless.
As characterisation goes, it's your atypical cast of urbanites. We have your 14 year old main protagonist, quiet and shy, but he has that abhorrent voice trait like he wants to be some kind of gangster.
Then we have the sassy girl who is a bit funny with him at first, but becomes really endeared to him, but also thinks it's still 1996 and girl power is an actual way of life.
Dad has a sinister side to him, and no matter how Albert Square the writer tries to make him, whenever he is on scree, you cannot shake the fact that he has some ulterior motive that is imperative to the whole narrative.
And this is why the film works so well. It's doesn't, for the first two acts anyway, try to be anything other than a straightforward haunted house movie, and its to its credit.
I doesn't reveal anything, other than the noises become louder, and Tommy is left alone by his dad for longer.
Because of the gritty aspect of the films setting, and the fact that the writer had a reality check by including 'real' people as characters rather than having well to do people as protagonists, like Hollywood does in every single quiet......quiet....bang film they churn out every week.
But then the third act happens, and revelations are, well, revealed, and a wonderful two acts are slightly marred by loose ends being tied up in the most bizarre ways imaginable, and basically not making a lot of sense.
But apart from the last ten minutes, it's a very well made British horror, which is a rarity to say these days, and Oliver Frampton is a name to look out for in the future.
He's grieved when he learns that his father is one of several squatters living in an empty council estate destined for demolition, but tries to make the best of it.
Tommy finds himself waking up each night by strange noises and on one occasion, finds that he and all of his belongings have been dragged from one side of the room to the other.
Growing ever more terrified, Tommy tries to talk to his father but finds that his father is becoming ever more bizarre and disturbing in personality........
Setting a supernatural horror/thriller film in a rundown block of flats in an urban area is always, in my humble opinion, a good move, because you already have an element of tension before the main story arc kicks in.
And it really helps that the film has one of the most unsettling opening scenes in recent memory, nothing but a black screen, and a call of distress. It's obviously going to have something to do with the eerie going ones in the block of flats, but it's effective nevertheless.
As characterisation goes, it's your atypical cast of urbanites. We have your 14 year old main protagonist, quiet and shy, but he has that abhorrent voice trait like he wants to be some kind of gangster.
Then we have the sassy girl who is a bit funny with him at first, but becomes really endeared to him, but also thinks it's still 1996 and girl power is an actual way of life.
Dad has a sinister side to him, and no matter how Albert Square the writer tries to make him, whenever he is on scree, you cannot shake the fact that he has some ulterior motive that is imperative to the whole narrative.
And this is why the film works so well. It's doesn't, for the first two acts anyway, try to be anything other than a straightforward haunted house movie, and its to its credit.
I doesn't reveal anything, other than the noises become louder, and Tommy is left alone by his dad for longer.
Because of the gritty aspect of the films setting, and the fact that the writer had a reality check by including 'real' people as characters rather than having well to do people as protagonists, like Hollywood does in every single quiet......quiet....bang film they churn out every week.
But then the third act happens, and revelations are, well, revealed, and a wonderful two acts are slightly marred by loose ends being tied up in the most bizarre ways imaginable, and basically not making a lot of sense.
But apart from the last ten minutes, it's a very well made British horror, which is a rarity to say these days, and Oliver Frampton is a name to look out for in the future.