Saturday 7 November 2009

WALLED IN

CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS

In which a mad architect with an overwhelming passion for cement entombs people alive in the walls of his graceless monoliths. And that's just the credits sequence. Now, fifteen years later, a young and foxy demolitions consultant (Mischa Barton, who I have to confess I've heard of but not seen before) shows up at a particularly ugly nine-storey monstrosity - an apartment block built, for no adequately explored reason, in the middle of a thousand acres of barren swampland - to work out the best way of blowing it up. Someone, or something, is out to stop her. The caretaker is obviously hiding something, her teenage son is clearly up to no good, the two remaining tenants are blatantly barmy. What's it got to do with Egyptian pyramids? And what's in the locked room on the top floor?

Say what you like, it's a while since a plot this loopy featured on a British soap opera. Walled In is pretty bonkers but unfortunately the madness doesn't carry and it is, ultimately, a bit dull. It's okay, and passes the time with a few nasty moments, but no more than that: maybe worth a rent, probably not worth buying unless you're a big Mischa Barton fan. (Then again, people still buy Steven Seagal movies in their thousands.)

Though it's billed as a horror film, it's really more of a psychological thriller that unfortunately doesn't make sense. I didn't mind it, but it's not particularly remarkable. It needed to be madder. (Though the DVD carries an 18 certificate, that's because of the extra features and the film itself is only a 15.)

**

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