Home Entertainment: ‘Alive’ Review

An injured man (Thomas Cocquerel) and woman (Camille Stopps) wake up in a dilapidated hospital with no memory of how they got there. Overseeing their care is a strange and seemingly disturbed doctor (Angus Macfadyen) with a very unusual form of bedside manner. As the pair struggle to recover memories of who they are, and how they wound up there, they realise that they aren’t safe in this man’s care and a bitter fight to escape ensues. 

Directed by Rob Grant, the mastermind behind the fantastic Harpoon and Fake Blood, Alive is, at first glance at least, more formulaic in terms of narrative and tone. Harpoon is very tongue-in-cheek, claustrophobic and inventive; Alive is less so. For example, the first third of the movie plays out as we’ve seen countless times before in kidnap and hostage torture tales. Towards the end, there is a spark of something unexpected, though its inclusion feels a tad too late in the game to fully pay-off. This difference in narrative style possibly stems from the fact that unlike Harpoon, which Grant wrote, the scripting duties here are undertaken by Chuck McCue and Jules Vincent. By all means there’s nothing direly wrong with the script, it’s just missing the flourishes that typically make Grant’s work so great.

Those that read the mention of torture and started imagining Hostel or Saw III level brutality and panicked, should know that Grant is quite restrained in what he does, and does not show. It would be all too easy to fall into those familiar pitfalls, but he instead sidesteps them and, whilst not shying away from the red stuff, knows just when to pull back and let the imagination take over. It’s a welcome choice and helps elevate Alive from its peers that get too bogged down in gore. 

Another element that makes Alive a cut above the rest lies in the hands of our trio of cast. There’s an exciting interplay between them, and for once it’s not the female character who gets hysterical or needs the man to calm her. Here she is the one trying to convince the man to fall in line to ease their misery. She’s also completely level-headed and works out early on what might be needed to survive. Playing opposite that, our male lead is rather more bullish and stubborn. He causes, and experiences, the brunt of the worst of what the Doctor has to offer, and it’s refreshing to not see a woman subjected to constant torment in a genre film for once. The cast do a great job with their characters, juggling the amnesia and will to survive nicely against the fear and the pain. It’s a gauntlet of emotions that they have to go through, and they handle the work well. 

Technically, the film is pretty faultless. The set is dressed suitably grimly, the costumes and effects feel authentic, and the tiny little world is tangible. Add to that some solid camerawork, a great score, and some clever editing, and you are onto a winner. The issue here stems from some of the story pacing. There’s a little bit too much repetition during the middle, with an escape attempted or plotted only to be thwarted at the last moment, before moving almost right into another attempt. Were this to be finessed, then Alive would flow a little better. It’s also sad that the most genuinely exciting part of the film doesn’t fully take shape until the last moments. It’s an electric chain of events, one that makes up for the saggy middle. Frustratingly though, by being unleashed so late it leaves the audience wishing the focus had been on it from much earlier. 

A film that pivots the most glaring cliches within this horror sub-genre, Alive still struggles at times to keep the viewer one hundred percent engaged. A great way to while away a couple of hours, but lacking in some of the typical Grant sparkle that made the likes of Harpoon so special. 

Alive is available on Digital HD now.