The United Kingdom. Soon. Civil war rages. A woman wakes up in a blindingly white cuboid cell. Using its sophisticated functionality, her captor tortures her for information; information she claims not to have - or does she?
Review
From writer and director Paul Raschid (Winterstoke House) comes 2018 horror / thriller / sci fi, White Chamber, in which near future UK is overrun by terrorists - maybe - and the government are ready and willing to torture and kill to get a leg up in bio weapon engineering. Which sounds very intriguing, but is not the real conceit of the film. A slow burn horror, told half in flashback, the film starts in a very similar vein to Infinity Chamber - with both films holding a similar central theme, but taking greatly different approaches.
Here we have a woman held in a mysterious chamber claiming to be nothing more than a cleric while being tortured by a largely unseen Zakarian, then at the halfway point the film flips to flashback and we see the first half of the story. To be honest it plays out pretty well. There are a number of story issues raised when the film changes to flashback, and clever writing does away with perceived inconsistencies. All in the writing is pretty solid, given however that the film starts in possibly the most generic way - with a voice over stock footage explaining that everything has gone to hell. Once the film starts proper, it finds it's feet quickly. The direction is damn good. Raschid does a great job of making everything very clinical, cold, and the sets looks suitably expensive - impressive for clearly a low budget effort. There are a couple of faux pas near the end of the runtime with the mishandling of substances by the characters given how important it has all been played up to be, but aside from that it's solid.
The effects in play are good. There is a number of body horror scenes which are suitably gross, with plenty of squick on show. Nice acid burn effects abound.
Leading the cast is Shauna MacDonald who can be a great actor (The Descent) or can phone it in (Nails) - and luckily we are treated to some of her best work. I can't say too much about characters because of the 'no spoilers' thing, but lest to say she is suitably good in both the first and second half of the film. Countering her is Oded Fehr (The Mummy) who is excellent in the film - a fine addition to the cast, and a great character actor. Standout however was Amrita Acharia (Game of Thrones) who stands her ground amiably against some powerful performances.
It's an excellent dark thriller, that is both engaging and entertaining as both a horror film and a frighteningly real look at what maybe to come. Definitely one to pay attention to, but definitely one to watch.
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