Recensione di bob the moo

I have to declare a potential conflict of interest with this one since I sort of know the writer/director and had heard about the film while it was being made. For some reason it popped into my head the other day and I decided to see if it was around, which it was – now available on YouTube. The plot sees a young man being chased down through Digbeth by a couple of thugs, who catch him and take him for a "discussion" with their boss over a missing parcel. After some encouragement the boy comes clean, and tells a story about what happened on the night he was charged with handing over the package.

From hearing discussions about the making of prosthetics and other special effects, I already knew what was coming in this little horror thriller, but still broadly enjoyed how it did it. Broad is perhaps a good choice of words because as a film it does deal in broad strokes, with very little finer detail or development. This starts with the opening scene and the loud rock music; we are thrown into the chase, then quickly into the "discussion". The characters in these scenes are broad – the main gangster character for example; this continues in the boy's story which is made up of overly done characters and moments (did we really need the barman dropping his glass and mugging to illustrate the importance of another man being in the bar?). The key scene in the piece is nicely done though, and although you do not see much, it is the impact and unknown that makes it work – I very much liked that we didn't leave the bathroom stall for most of the event, as this produced a sense of tension and enclosure.

Performances throughout are of the so-so variety; perhaps they were not helped by the material because they do generally do the basics with their characters and delivery. That said, I did believe the fear in the young boy in the key scene of the film in the bathroom, so that worked well. Technically it mostly looks and sounds good; the "feel" to the film between locations was a bit different which gives it a little bit of a fragmented feel (specifically when cutting between two external shots at the start) but otherwise it was clearly done and I liked the use of Birmingham locations around Digbeth and the Mailbox.

There is scope to be less broad, more focused and thus more impacting in what it does, but as a quick horror thriller it does the job well enough, with a good core scene, good pace and generally a good concept.