Tormented

Stars: Tuppence Middleton, Dimitri Leonidas, Alex Pettyfer, Calvin Dean, April Pearson, Mary Nighy, James Floyd, Georgia King

Director: Jon Wright

It's the ghoul in school! Hard to tell whether this British effort is a teen horror film or a horror comedy. Perhaps it takes itself too seriously to be the latter. At any rate, overweight schoolboy Darren (Dean), victimised by the school bullies, hangs himself, then comes back from the dead to wreak vengeance in the variety of gruesome ways so beloved of horror film makers.

One is impaled on a spike, another decapitated, a third has her hands chopped off (in a heavily-signalled development), another is found floating in the school pool. 'You've got to come,' wails the eccentric art teacher to the head, on discovering the body. 'She's probably swimming,' the head replies.

Chief bully Pettyfer tries to dig's Darren's body up, but can't get down deep enough and bursts into tears.

Exonerated from all this carnage is heroine Justine (Middleton) - who seems pretty weak for a head girl - the unknowing object of the dead teenager's affections. There's much gore and splatter and a bit of sex, though nothing too overt. Performances are barely adequate, but the film is good for a giggle, if not always in the way the director intended. Ruby Bentall, Minnie the maid in TV's Lark Rise to Candleford, is lucky enough to have a wordless supporting role.

David Quinlan

UK 2009. UK Distributor: Pathe. Colour.
89 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 0, Swearing 1.

Review date: 19 May 2009