Salvage (2009)

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

For about the first forty minutes or so, this wasn't a bad movie at all. Neve McIntosh plays the distraught mother convincingly and Shaun Dooley does a fine job as a one-night stand who winds up really regretting that impulse. Despite a few minor stumbles, the film develops an engrossingly claustrophobic atmosphere of terror and paranoia.Which then crumbles under the weight of its muddled storyline and pedestrian plotting. For example, one particularly annoying "twist" occurs when they have Dooley attacked and pulled out of sight by the (still-unseen) monster while he's trying to climb into the attic, only to pop back up outside a few minutes later with no visible injuries and only a slight limp to show for the encounter. I guess mutant hell-beasts are like bears: play dead and maybe they'll leave you alone. The director was certainly smart not to show us much of the creature -- because what you do see isn't particularly frightening. (In fact, it reminded me of nothing so much as one of the boogeymen in the old Laurel and Hardy film, "March of the Wooden Soldiers".) But that's forgivable, so long as you don't climax your story by having your fearsome super-fast, super-strong monster -- which in the last hour and ten minutes has offed several of her neighbors and made mincemeat out of some heavily-armed special forces dunderheads -- summarily dispatched by a fireplace poker! I get the "frantic mom protecting her cub" angle, but it has to make you wonder what all the fuss was about. Maybe they should have equipped those SAS guys with sticks with a nail in them instead of assault rifles.And I know people don't always act reasonably when they're under extreme stress, but a daughter who looks her mother square in the face while deliberately locking her outside -- when she knows a savage, murderous creature is lurking about -- then just turns and walks away, all on account of some abandonment issues? That's cold. It completely destroyed any sympathy I might have had for the selfish, spiteful little drama queen. This was a good try. I'd have no hesitation about checking out another film by this director. It's not so bad that I'd urge people to give it a miss entirely, but it's disappointing to see a movie which initially had so much going for it end up missing the mark so badly.

SALVAGE comes across as an ultra-low budget variant on the whole 28 DAYS LATER theme, with terrified residents struggling to protect themselves from a rampaging killer whose identity is only revealed in snippets. Sadly, though, it's not much of a film at all, and certainly nothing we haven't already seen time and again, plot-wise. The whole 'container on the beach' aspect of the storyline (and title) is ridiculous and unconnected with the central story, which I imagined would be about thieving residents finding themselves affected by pollution.Instead, it's the usual home invasion style antics, with a little excitement raised through some shenanigans in the loft, but not a lot. Inevitably, given the lack of money behind the production, much of the (short) running time is spent on people sitting around and chatting despite the air of pervading menace. A shame, then, that the characters are so lacklustre and unbelievable, particularly Neve McIntosh's ridiculous lead, Beth, who spends her entire time running around after an obnoxious daughter who clearly hates her guts.Shaun Dooley, as McIntosh's comedic love interest, is better, but his character is purely there to give the lead somebody to talk to, so he doesn't get much to work with. The film squanders its money on some cheaply-staged gore effects (already done so many times, would have been better utilised if put towards more scenes of menace) while the regional accents of the Liverpudlian cast members render dialogue completely incomprehensible.Part of the fun from watching comes from the realisation that this was filmed on the left-over sets from TV's BROOKSIDE, although the film's in serious trouble when the most interest it can muster involves recognising the bloody buildings it takes place in! Throw in a few silly plot twists and you have an entirely superfluous fluff piece that's surely going to be forgotten by all but the most ardent fans of modern British horror. If you want a decent film in this sub-genre, you could do worse than check out Isolation, about genetic experiments on cows at a remote farm.

Low, low budget but some good things here. Shaun Dooley and Miss Ahmed are just terrific in a film that they must have understood would get next to no distribution and/or attention. Dooley's had some fine roles to date and I look forward to him becoming an actor of Bob Hoskins or Ray Winstone's stature. Ahmed is both attractive and talented, though her resume looks like acting isn't even her day job. The other three or four speaking parts are also very convincing. The problem is that the "bogey man" monster is given very short rift as far as imagination, depiction and on-screen time. Slowly, we see that the real storyline is the character development of Dooley and Ahmed's respective characters. By then its too late. The ending gives the word "abrupt" new definition.

Salvage do has his pro and contra's. I would like to choose in between. it takes a while before it starts (20 minutes) and due it's short time that's a bit too long. The first 20 minutes we start to know the personalities then suddenly things go from wrong to worse. A container washes ashore with some hidden secrets. The army is supposed to solve the problem but they can't do it. It's the twist in the story that makes the first 20 minutes a bit of a waist of time. Even the part were they are telling each other why they are cheating is a bit too long. Luckily, the blood is in tact and the slaughtering is sometimes brutal and even gory. A good effort to try to make a weird story but lacks sometimes of suspense.