www.gabrielfilms.co.ukDir: Craig Strachan
Cast: Martin Compston, Peter Capaldi, Samantha Shields, Nicola Muldoon
Kids camping on moors
but there's a beast with big teeth
can they save baby?
After the patchy performances of Evil Aliens and Dead Meat my expectations were suitably low for Wild Country, which on paper at least seemed to be the weakest of the three low budget British shockers. However, what Wild Country has that the others don’t is decent acting – people that actually play it straight rather than hamming it up and having a laugh with their mates on a film set. Kelly Ann (Shields) leads the way as a schoolgirl mother forced to give up her baby for adoption as the film begins. When she goes camping with her youth group - cue some witty exchanges between the kids - they find that they're not alone, and things take an even stranger turn when they find an abandoned baby in an underground burrow. Strachan’s film doesn’t break any new ground – it’s a familiar tale of kids stranded on the moors with a beastie on the loose – but it’s the serious approach which makes this stand out from its rivals. A half decent script with believable dialogue doesn’t hurt, either. In addition to Peter Capaldi’s light relief as a randy vicar, the young cast all give excellent performances and richly deserved all the attention that followed the screening. The brief running time harbours a lean film which never drags. Okay, the beast – designed by former Hellraiser FX maestro, Bob Keen – is a little hokey, and the screening wasn’t helped by the darkness of the print in the mid-section, but overall this is a canny little film, and was received as such by the FrightFest audience.
soulmining rating: ***
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