A FIELD IN ENGLAND [2013]

Director Ben Wheatley's Sightseers and Kill List were whacked out genre-hopping films, so I should have expected A Field In England to one up those in the completely crazed "what the fuck" department.
Imagine a black & white 17th century English Civil War film told like a 1960's arthouse flick, then drenched in a heavy dose of mind-warping awkwardness & feverish psychedelia and you get a faint idea of what this bizarre little piece of cinema is all about.
Wheatley paints his films with a gleefully grotesque cynical view of the world and this one is his boldest yet.  I'm more than certain it's going to force viewers to scratch their heads till they bleed and occasionally that hurts the enjoyment of the film, as the actors don't seem to entirely understand what they're doing either.

3 shitty treasures out of 5

THE COTTAGE [2008]

After being thoroughly impressed with Paul Andrew Williams' London To Brighton, I was eager to see his take on horror-comedy in The Cottage. 

Turns out I was to be vastly disappointed with this lacklustre snoozefest.  It's just scratches the surface of mildly funny and supplies next to no scares, which in my books is a failure.  Apart from a few slight titters, I found the 92 minutes to be excruciatingly long and difficult to enjoy.  If you're going to hire an entertaining character actor like Andy Serkis don't get him to play the straight man because it sucks even more fun out of the end product.  Piss on this film.

1 moth out of 5