THE HAMILTONS

Young Francis (Cory Knauf, POCAHAUNTUS) is filming video footage of his family for a school project. We first meet his oldest brother David (Samuel Child, LURKING IN SUBURBIA) on video, who seems a little grumpy and patriarchal.

It's not long before Francis' narration explains why: he, David, middle brother Wendell (Joseph McKelheer, LIMBO LOUNGE) and sister Darlene (MacKenzie Firgens, THE BOOK OF CALEB) have recently moved into a new neighbourhood and are still mourning the deaths of their parents.

David has become the head of the family, with Wendell exercising a strong second-in-command. Francis, as the youngest of the siblings, feels alienated from the others.

But as Francis' narration tells how he hates the way his newly abridged family can never settle down and is constantly moving from one town to another, we soon to discover the reason: Wendell and David have a morbid hobby.

Wendell takes two girls out on a date one night. While joking on with them, he casually knocks the pair of them out in his car. A disembodied pre-credits scene alarmed the viewer earlier with a young pretty girl bound and gagged in a basement. Sure enough, Wendell's dates have the same fate in store for them ...

Later that night, after an amusingly awkward family meal, Francis stumbles across Wendell and David preparing to torture their bound captives in the family barn. More intriguingly, they talk to moans coming from a nailed-up hole in the barn wall. Although whatever it is that lurks behind the barricade remains hidden, we discover that its name is Lenny ... and that it's getting hungry.

Francis continues to film his family for his school project, focusing mainly on their bickering, character quirks and the odd relationship that appears to have been formed between Wendell and Darlene.

In-between these observations, the elder brothers carry on with their killing and torturing, the purpose behind which is not revealed until the movie's finale.

While Francis' growing unease at his family's sadistic bent means these episodic scenes spiral quite predictably through the film's first three quarters, the final ten minutes do at least offer something a little different which separates THE HAMILTONS from the norm.

Prior to that, the best bits of THE HAMILTONS are the keenly observed moments of inter-family conversing: the oddness of characters and the sparse home art-decor recall the likes of HEATHERS or SOCIETY - that left-of-the-middle commentary on today's youth (or rather, how they view the world they're growing into), that threatens from the start to reveal something ugly beneath the surface of cutesy American family values.

When the horrors begin, it's a tad disappointing. The quieter, more character-led scenes are definitely what propel THE HAMILTONS; the torture scenes, while not particularly graphic, are gratuitous in that they add nothing to the film as a whole.

First-time writer/directors The Butcher Brothers (the upcoming APRIL FOOL'S DAY) have crafted an uneven, flawed work that recalls better films. Nevertheless it's worth a look, standing as something genuinely different from the current slew of DTV horror drivel that's presently out there.

THE HAMILTONS is presented uncensored in it's original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and has been anamorphically enhanced for 16x9 TV sets. Picture quality is excellent - bright, well-saturated colours and sharp contrasts work together to please the eye.

The English 5.1 audio mix does a grand, well-balanced job too. It's complemented by easily readable optional English subtitles.

While any kind of scene-selection menu is curiously absent, the movie can be accessed on your remote control via 16 chapters.

The disc opens up with "forced" trailers for FRAGILE, EDISON, SEE NO EVIL and EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH (!).

Actual bonus features on offer include seven minutes of deleted scenes which don't add anything to the mix, and are not unjustly resigned to the cutting room floor.

More illuminating is the commentary track from the Butcher Brothers and Knauf. It's the same track that appeared on the After Dark R1 - sometimes jokey, at times sickeningly self-congratulatory, but on the whole comprehensive and enlightening.

A Making-Of would've been nice, to see how the young cast related to one another when out of character, but alas - it was not to be. Perhaps we'll get one when the inevitable sequel arrives ...

The mainstream press has already been heralding THE HAMILTONS as a modern cult classic. All I can do in response is shrug my shoulders and admit that it has its moments.

Review by Stu Willis