Cradle of Fear

As the back cover sapiently declares, this is indeed 'not a film for the faint-hearted'. Furthermore, this is not a film for viewers with high expectations, or any sort of decent cinematic moral stance for that matter. Cradle of Fear is cheap, disgusting and poorly acted; in many ways, it's a modern day 'video nasty'. As it is, the film can only hold cult appeal, it's simply too vile to attract lovers of mainstream cinema.

So, in other words... sounds brilliant, count me in!

Cradle of Fear plays out as an interlocking anthology of horror stories surrounding Kemper (David McKewan), a serial killer and occult hypnotist who is now serving a sentence within a London asylum. Exacting revenge from his grim prison, Kemper unleashes his satanic assistant, The Man (Cradle of Filth frontman Dani Filth), upon those that were involved or related to his incarceration. Well... that's how it looks on paper anyway. In fact, this premise isn't revealed in such a linear fashion as the film plays out, no thanks to the fairly average delivery of crucial dialogue. In reality, this is just an excuse to make sure that really nasty things happen to as many different people as possible.

By now, we should safely assume that only those who find this concept appealing have made it this far. I know what you want to know - exactly how nasty does this get? Without revealing any crucial plot points I can list the following features. Heads get stepped on, crushed and cut in half (along with many other such traumas), people (and animals for that matter) get disembowelled and mutilated, legs and other limbs get severed, bones get removed, innards get consumed, knives and hammers are used, demons are spawned and one man takes his fascination for snuff a little too far. Yes, it's foul. But Cradle of Fear isn't without a sense of humour, albeit a severely twisted one. Fans of filmmakers such as Dario Argento, Peter Jackson, George A. Romero, David Cronenberg and Sam Raimi will instantly click with this film, as it is indeed the works from these masters that are an immediate influence on the film itself.

Cradle of Fear's director Alex Chandon has a significant cult following in the UK horror scene, having so far directed four independently financed features that demonstrate his panache for all things gory. Some have called him the saviour of British horror, whilst others have openly denounced his techniques as cheap and tacky. One minute with Cradle of Fear will effortlessly confirm the latter theory, but anyone with even half a vision will be able to recognise Chandon's potential. Never forget that people would have had the same opinion of Peter Jackson when he unleashed Bad Taste upon the world.

Whether or not Chandon gains eventual recognition for his talent, however, is not the most important aspect to consider here. Above all, it is his guerilla filmmaking techniques that demand attention. No matter how turned off (or on) you are by the 'look' of Cradle of Fear, Chandon's ability to create this film by the seat of his pants, and largely from the very skint pockets of said pants, is simply remarkable.

No matter how putrid you find this movie, nothing will shock you more than the state of this video transfer. Since DVDs have become standard, the quality of transfers has been fairly consistent. Unfortunately, while I seriously doubt that it's the fault of Umbrella, this one goes against the grain. Although it's only one problem, it is a big one - compression artefacts. Not just a little bit here and there either, it is literally rampant throughout the feature with MPEG blocking glitches popping up at a constant and alarming rate. The fact that the production has a cheap look to it is an acceptable factor, but with these compression problems it becomes almost unwatchable. 'Almost', because in actual fact, most other areas of this transfer are quite decent.

Needless to say the colours on display are quite cold, but this is a natural by-product of shooting on video. The fact is, no matter how much reality a film is trying to achieve, video will always prove that there is such a thing as too close to reality. Though it's often poorly lit, Chandon has made good use of his limitations to help give the film an appropriate atmosphere. Since it was shot on digital video, the image detail is quite good throughout, however, because of the overly dark nature of the visuals, the detail tends to get a little shrouded every now and then.

Overall, there isn't much to complain about with the audio side of this transfer. Any problems here can generally be traced back to the source, such as unclear dialogue and unfortunately tacky sound effects. Otherwise, we get a perfectly serviceable Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack.

A few extras have been included with this uncut, two-hour version of Cradle of Fear. First up we have two theatrical trailers for the film which are fairly standard affairs, but quite effective nonetheless. The major inclusion here though, is a short behind the scenes featurette. Although it's fleeting, it provides a good insight into the making of the film, and it is clear that everyone involved had a great time with it. And for Cradle of Filth fans, there's some precious footage of Dani Filth getting in a few decent cracks. As an Umbrella release in Region 4 territory, this disc also includes the standard Umbrella Propaganda promotional material highlighting some of their other horror releases.

Okay, so the video transfer is horrible and the film's subject matter won't appeal to many besides Goths and true lovers of only the goriest films of our times, but Alex Chandon clearly has an astute head for the horror genre. If someone sees fit to endorse him with a healthy budget, there is no doubt he could create some truly inspirational horror in years to come. And if not, it is certain that he will continue to crank out his gore spectaculars on his own terms.

Although Cradle of Fear isn't quite an instant classic, it is still savagely enjoyable and at the very least an allusion to the beginning of a classic Director's career