Film Reviews

Hush

• Rating:
• Director: Mark Tonderai
• Starring: William Ash
• Details: UK / 91mins (15).

The second movie, after Donkey Punch, from the Warp stable - those former pioneers of electronica and IDM - is Hush, which suffers the same curse as its predecessor: an interesting set up hammered by increasingly unbelievable (and annoying) plot twists. While finishing his job one night (he refreshes posters in motorway service stations), the oddly named Zakes Abbot (Ash) sees something he doesn't believe - the truck in front has a woman caged in the back! What to do? Well, Zakes does what anyone would do; he calls the police and continues about his job - something his girlfriend Beth (Bottomley), along to keep him company, can't understand. When they stop at another service station, Beth breaks up with Zakes and disappears. Fearing she might be in the same white truck that's parked in the foyer, Zakes pursues it into the night...What follows is Zakes almost catching up with the truck, then not, then almost catching up, then not, and so on. The 'then nots' are the most frustrating aspect of this thriller: Zakes phone battery dies and his car runs out of petrol at the most inopportune moments; he makes silly decisions, way beyond the 'don't go in there' scenarios; and finds himself escaping from inescapable situations. This is disappointing because director Tonderai, who also writes here, exhibits a certain talent for keeping the viewer on edge, tensed up and keeps the 'what would I do in this situation?' questions to the fore... right before ruining it for everyone. With one sequence crashing into another, there isn't much of a flow in this episodic narrative and a good idea is hampered by poor execution. There's enough scope here, though, to suggest that Tonderai will go on to make better films.

Review by Gavin Burke