Nails Review: Shauna Macdonald stars in Irish horror film Nails as Dana, a woman whom, during her stay in hospital, becomes terrorised by a nightmarish ghoul known as Nails.
Nails review, Kat Hughes.
NAILS REVIEW
Shauna Macdonald returns to the horror world in Nails. Directed by Dennis Bartok, Macdonald plays Dana, whom after suffering massive injuries in a car accident, is left bedridden in hospital. Her injuries are so serve that she can no longer speak for herself and has to rely on a computer to communicate, her legs are also in a really bad way. Her vulnerable situation is made all the worse when she falls victim to something inhuman that stalks the hospital floors at night. Desperate for someone to believe her, Dana must summon up all her strength as she goes into battle alone.
The premise of Nails is a very tricky one. With the exception of the opening couple of moments, the story is confined to one location and our main character has been rendered mute and static. It’s a hard idea to make work on-screen as film, by nature, is all about movement and here everything is confined and restricted. Ultimately, director Dennis Bartok tries very hard to think up various techniques to keep the audience engaged, but things fall a little flat. There’s not a whole lot of variety to be had with a bed-bound protagonist, most of the camera work flickers between only a hand-full of angles.
NAILS REVIEW
Given that the story is so focused on Dana and her hospital bed, it’s hard to fully understand the rest of the environment. It also means that in order to feed information there is a lot of clunky exposition which drags the story and pacing down. The passage of narrative time isn’t particularly clear. It’s never quite clear how long Dana has been trapped, plus her recovery in certain areas seems to happen faster than other areas which we would expect to take longer. There are also several big leaps that characters make, for example, Dana suddenly becomes convinced that her husband is cheating despite there not being a great deal of evidence. Another pertains to the reason that Dana can see Nails when others can’t, we won’t go into details so as to not spoil plot points, but the film seems to become confused by it’s own mythology at several points. Towards the end the narrative really suffers, suddenly we get all the tropes of an abandoned haunted hospital thrown into the mix, and a clever reveal isn’t anywhere near as clever as it thinks it is.
NAILS REVIEW
Most characters are your typical stock horror-types: eccentric doctor, stern nurse, distant partner, with little work on making them anything more. Comedian Ross Noble is on hand as one of Dana’s carers and only ally. He injects a nice smattering of warmth, but still suffers from being an underdeveloped character. Macdonald gives it her all as Dana and should be highly commended for what is a very tough part to play. Her speech work is fantastic and she gives really good anguish and frustration. Sadly though, the muddled and underdeveloped script makes her task almost impossible.
Another fundamental problem is the title, Nails just isn’t a particularly scary name. It’s an even worse name when you know that it comes from the man collecting children’s fingernails. Granted it’s a creepy thing to do, but ‘Nails’ doesn’t strike terror into our hearts.
There are however, moments of intrigue, the first time that Dana sees Nails is handled deftly and elicits chills. The use of the speak and spell as a main communication device for our mute main character to speak is also interesting. It could so easily have been the usual pen and paper, but the speak and spell helps to generate some atmosphere and suspense – how can anyone around Dana realise how stressed out she is when she has a cold, robotic voice speaking on her behalf?
Nails comes to us via production company Fantastic Films, a company that had a hand in previous Irish chiller The Hallow. Nails might not be as strong a film, but thanks to a commendable turn by Macdonald, it still has enough to keep the viewer engaged. Not a film that will keep you awake at night, but definitely one that will inoffensively pass the time.
Nails review by Kat Hughes, June 2017.
Nails is released in select Irish and UK cinemas from 16th June 2017.
