Director: John Pogue.
Starring: Jared Harris, Sam Claflin, Olivia Cooke, Erin Richards, Rory Fleck-Byrne, Laurie Calvert.
Running Time: 98 minutes.
Certificate: 15.
Synopsis: A university professor and his students conduct experiments on a young woman, in order to exorcise her demons and free her of the spirit that possesses her – but they gravely underestimate the task that lays before them.
Horror is an odd genre. Its rate of output is more consistent than perhaps any other, and yet its worth has, on the whole, dived in the past couple of decades. But every now and then, a film surfaces that defies the norm – as has THE QUIET ONES, here to prove that occasionally the genre can still serve up a case of quality over quantity.
Director John Pogue’s second feature film follows Professor Coupland (Jared Harris) and a team of university students as they experiment on a young woman to hopefully exterminate whatever possesses her. The plot doesn’t sound much cop, admittedly, but it’s a combination of some stellar performances and Pogue’s sublime execution that really makes THE QUIET ONES worth your time.
Here is a horror film that really creates a sense of intrigue, of mystery; a horror film that uses the jump scare to its credit rather than as a last resort, and indeed, a horror film that, at times, is genuinely frightening. Partly this is down to the terrific suspense that Pogue builds throughout the concise 98 minute runtime, with Olivia Cooke’s suitably creepy Jane Harper, subject of Professor Coupland’s experiments, becoming increasingly more unpredictable.
And yet, one of the greatest triumphs here is that Cooke manages to elicit a three-dimensional person from what has typically been a two-dimensional character. While Pogue may not get many points for originality, his ability to build on and further typical horror tropes is commendable. Jane’s affliction almost makes us pity her, as we see her through the eyes of another great British talent in the form of naive yet caring AV assistant Brian McNeil (THE HUNGER GAMES’ Sam Claflin).
The small-town setting of Oxford creates a claustrophobic sense to the production which heightens tensions even further, particularly when the team move to a remote house to continue their experiments. The finale is a little too silly and the script may not be anything new, but in a genre that’s been done to death, Pogue has managed to accomplish something which still feels fresh.
This is British horror at its finest; engrossing, tense and superbly acted, this is a refreshing change of pace for genre fans.
[usr=4] THE QUIET ONES is released in UK cinemas on Thursday 10th April, 2014.
