If you go down to the farm today…

Isolation(2005) Review

This low budget English horror movie went totally under my radar, but turns out to be a hidden gem. The reason I probably missed it is that the description of it sounds so ridiculous I probably dismissed it out of hand. A genetically mutated cow placenta goes on a slashing rampage of death and contamination on a deserted farm, only the farmer, a misguided scientist and two squatting travelers can stop it. It sounds like it would make a good double-bill with the jokey Peter Jacksonish Bad Sheep. Sitting down to watch it, I certainly didn’t expect one of the scariest horror films England has produced in the last five years. At the moment, like France and Spain, we are producing some pretty consistently nerve-shredding horrors like The Children, The Descent and Eden Lake, which this shares its feeling of drip fed dread with. There is also that wonderful tipping point missing from a lot of Hollywood horror films of characters having a good reason to stay in the area once things start happening, a brief time when we the audience know, and they the characters could cut and run, and an ending where there is a good reason they have to stay/sacrifice themselves, in this case to stop the contamination from spreading to the outside world.
Before we even see anything wrong, and the effects and gore when they do come, are so well done that we don’t feel cheated by their five minutes of screen time, the farm is incredibly intimidating. Later, its interiors, dark crawlspaces and deep, bubbling slurry pit and dirty ominous puddles, is just as effective as the Nostromo spacecraft in Alien, or Antarctica base in The Thing, as a ‘dark basement,’ to act as the creature’s lair. The film owes a debt to both of these, plus Aliens, The Blob, and the recent Splinter, and deserves accolades simply for producing an original monster. However, the reason the film works is that using a small cast( 6 people, and only 4 have major roles), and an enclosed location, the film spends time on characters and then proceeds to ratchet up suspense. All the actors are great with believable motivations and backstories, there are no simple heroes or mad scientists here, and even the ending is left ambiguous. As previously mentioned, for the budget, the special effects are great, as is the wonderfully doom laden score. This film took a ridiculous premise and not only made you believe it but made you genuinely scared by it. Excellent job by all involved. 9/10