KNIFE EDGE

Wall Street trader Emma (Natalie Press) is more focused on what her five-year-old son Thomas (Miles Ronayne) is up to at home, than the stocks she's supposed to be keeping a close check on. Much to her colleagues' frustration, she's on the telephone to husband Henri (Matthieu Boujenah) regarding Thomas while a huge deal unfolds. Amazingly, she still manages to seal the deal and earn her firm a cool $25 million.

The family then takes a celebratory visit to England, where Emma originates from. Henri takes them to see a lovely big country house with acres of private ground and tall metal gates that keep the outside world out. It all looks so lovely.

Then Henri drops the bombshell - he's bought the house so they can relocate there, and he's already arranged for all of Emma's stuff to be shipped over from New York. Is this all too good to be true, perhaps?

However, after a spot of afternoon delight upstairs while Thomas checks out the sprawling garden, Emma is left alone on the landing and gets her first ill feeling about the house. The feeling soon evaporates when she walks into the study and all her old friends are there to throw a surprise party in her honour. She's delighted to see them all, in particular old pal Charles (Hugh Bonneville).

Also at the party is Emma's sister Flora (Tamsin Egerton), who is as surprised as everyone else when Thomas announces to the roomful of revellers that his mum is pregnant to stepdad Henri.

Later that night when everyone's gone home and Thomas is in bed, Henri and Emma soak in the bath together. Their relaxation is cut short when they discover Emma's brother Andrew (Lorcan O'Toole) has stayed behind. He's drunk and bolshy, and says he's there to pick up what's rightfully his ... his share of his father's trust fund, which he reckons Emma has conned him out of. He's sent packing as the pair retire for the evening.

The following morning, the weirdness begins - Emma starts to hear things whispered in the house, and suffers from traumatic visions that flash rapidly before her eyes when in the garden.

The garden itself is a huge beast that cascades down into local woods at the bottom, and Emma is compelled by whatever may lurk within the trees. She goes wandering into the misty woodlands and stumbles across Marjorie (Joan Plowright) - an elderly lady and former teacher who offers her services as a nanny. She says she met Henri previously in the nearby village, and he'd offered her the job.

The next few days are even tougher on Emma, with Henri away almost permanently on business and Thomas doing weird things such as stabbing dolls repeatedly. Emma continues to hear things and see strange things (people getting chopped up in the bathroom etc), and when Marjorie proves to be of little comfort, she calls on smarmy pal Charles for help.

Events escalate with more visions and Henri dismissing Emma's fears as being the products of an over-active imagination, while forging a relationship with Andrew behind her back in the hope of making some cash. Marjorie continues to creepily oversee Thomas in the house as things get spookier and Emma becomes more and more convinced that her new home holds a terrible secret.

Does it? Or are her earlier paranoid feelings towards those around her warranted? And if so, who is it that she should not trust? Henri? Andrew? Marjorie? Charles? Flora? Herself?!

Risible dialogue and wooden acting are two of the biggest problems facing KNIFE EDGE, the latest offering from director Anthony Hickox (WAXWORK; HELLRAISER 3: HELL ON EARTH).

The script is woeful, being literally peppered with corny dialogue and one clichéd line after another. If this was a clumsily dubbed Euro effort from the mid-70s, this type of stuff would not only be acceptable but charming. In the context of a British production from 2008, however, it is just terrible. And not even in a funny way.

Performances are oddly lacklustre throughout, making even the supposedly spooky scenes comes across as listless and dull. For the most part the cast are wooden, although O'Toole and Boujenah do show signs of a little more in the way of zest: they are the standout worst actors in a film filled with dodgy performances.

Plowright attempts to bring a modicum of finesse to the production but she's underused, and looks a little embarrassed by her involvement in this mess. It's not her best hour.

Being generous, it can at least be said that the locations are nice, the photography is bright and colourful, and Guy Farley has delivered a decent score.

But as a horror thriller this is pitifully wide of the mark, being utterly devoid of tension or suspense. Its mystery element never engages, we never care about Emma or Thomas, and the ending is predictable. Furthermore, all of the "scares" along the way are half-arsed and lazy re-enactments of ones we've seen umpteen times in Asian horror films over the last decade.

This screener disc from Scanbox Entertainment offered no menus or extras and may not be indicative, in terms of audio/video quality, of the discs sold online.

However, it did offer a very pleasant anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer that boasted strong colours and bright images throughout. Sharp and clean, the picture quality is very nice indeed.

English 2.0 audio fared well throughout too.

Remote access to the film was available via 10 chapters. I assume the retail disc will offer a similar option, as the chapters seemed to come at natural points during the film.

KNIFE EDGE is a horror film for people who're looking for something clichéd, watered down and lifeless.

Review by Stu Willis