 |
| |
|
| |
Directed by:
Johannes Roberts
Written by:
Johannes Roberts
|
|
| |
|
| |
 |
| |
| Released: |
2010 |
| |
|
| Genre: |
HORROR
|
| |
|
| Origin: |
UK |
| |
|
| Colour: |
C |
| |
|
| Length: |
79 |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
Gruesome hoodie movie. |
Reviewed by Chris Tookey
|
British writer-director Johannes Roberts’s F starts out with an excellent idea. David Schofield (pictured) plays an English teacher called Anderson (a homage to the Anderson precinct in Carpenter’s movie?) who is attacked in class by a pupil but then given little support by his politically correct headmistress (Ruth Gemmell). He’s been doling out “F” (for fail) grades to some of his students, which is, so they say, needlessly hurtful to the academically challenged. The teacher’s superiors are less concerned with defending their staff than they are about placating the mother of the aggressive child, who is threatening to sue the school.
Months later, we see the teacher has turned into a disillusioned alcoholic and is separated from his wife (Juliet Aubrey) and despised by his teenage daughter (Eliza Bennett), a pupil in his class.
It’s a great set-up, and I expected a film in which the school’s failure to deal decisively with violence leads to more brutality, and the teacher rediscovers his self-esteem and the love of his family, but that’s not what happens. Instead, an undifferentiated gang of weapon-wielding hoodies breaks into the school after hours and start slaughtering everyone they meet.
Frankly, it’s hard to see why. The school does not seem excessively cruel - or hubristically weak. What has driven these teenagers to bestial behaviour? It’s never even clear if one of the murderous hoodies is the boy whom our hero gave an “F”.
Are they drop-outs? And how come they’re all so athletic? Are they disaffected members of the school gymnastics team?
I suppose it’s possible that the hoodies are supernatural, but that hardly seems likely in a film that’s otherwise grounded in social realism.
The film’s lack of interest in the villains’ identity or motivation make it markedly inferior to my favourite British horror film of recent years, Eden Lake, which took the trouble to analyse why children turn feral, and how violence can spiral nightmarishly out of control.
F is very well acted by its principals, capably shot and effective in its use of its creepy, after-school environment. But I wished it gave a clearer sense of the school’s layout, and it becomes a tad depressing in the sexist way it exploits some of the female characters’ attractive physical assets before smashing their faces to a pulp.
Though Roberts does a fine job of creating two characters we can care about - the teacher and his daughter - he doesn’t convince us that the events could really happen.
I wouldn’t give this film an F, but early promise of an A dwindles by the end to a B minus. Roberts could do better, and I am confident that he will.
|
|
|
|
|
|
, Eliza Bennett 
, Ruth Gemmell 
