UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY

Rick (David Paisley) drives his sexy red-haired girlfriend Sadie (Christina De Vallee) to the picturesque island of Amen for her birthday. With the help of his unpredictable pal Johnny (Jonathan Keane), Rick has a surprise in store for his beloved.

However, things don’t bode well from the start when we learn that Amen – however attractive its sunsets may be – is a very private place that is only accessible to via personal invitation. And, worryingly, Rick has blagged an invite through troubled local girl Corrine (Jill Riddiford) ...

The threesome stay at a B&B upon their arrival and all seems well. Well, for the boys at least. They stay up late watching video footage of their landlady getting fucked, Johnny eventually managing to seduce the initially reluctant Rick in the process. Sadie, meanwhile ... well, disturbing things happen to her in the bathroom.

The following morning, Rick confesses to Sadie that he has something special lined up for her: a reunion with a long-lost sister, on this island that Sadie was born on.

Things go tits up when the threesome drive further into the heart of the island and try to find Corrine. Firstly, they get fumigated by an over-zealous sheep farmer. And then, Johnny antagonises pregnant Sadie while Corrine watches from a safe distance. Who’s the Daddy, eh?

When the trio finally meet Corrine, in a weird farm barn reunion, things seem quite awkward. But not half as awkward as they’re going to get very quickly. Especially when Corrine invites them back to her place, and her daughter wishes Sadie an "unhappy birthday" ...

UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY is beautiful; it looks fantastic throughout, with every single frame having been meticulously prepared and shot. Colours and compositions are hugely expressive, leading to a film that looks better than any low budget UK effort in recent memory. The coastal landscapes and moonlit backdrops were filmed on location in Northumberland (!), and in particular the beautiful plains of Lindisfarne. Which puts co-directors Mark Harriott and Mike Matthews at an unfair advantage, of course – but they manage to make the natural beauty seem all the more appealing via their illuminative stylings.

Pleasingly though, there is an extremely straightforward approach to how UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY is shot and edited. It doesn’t subscribe to needless arty-farty pop video gimmickry or film school bravado. Happily, the co-directors (who also co-wrote the simple but effective screenplay) have more confidence in their delivery: they keep things unfussy, and register with more impact as a result.

Well-acted throughout – albeit sometimes in a soap opera fashion - and endlessly watchable, UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY comes on like a hip new version of THE WICKER MAN with stunning photography and a nice sideline in genre subversion. But with fewer characters, such are the budgetary restrictions.

Although these characters are not exactly likeable (Sadie’s is especially cruel at times), the way each one is presented and the awkward social predicaments that arise offer a pleasingly fresh spin on potentially tired origins. Riddiford does admittedly struggle with some difficult dialogue though, failing to rise above her own sporadically cheesy dialogue.

Mild nudity and milder gore punctuate what is effectively an old-fashioned thriller that plays on traditional themes of fear of isolation, and counter-cultural paranoia. Given that this is a Peccadillo release, there is an element of gay interest. But if there are readers who recoil at this point, then don’t: this is a very stylish, subtle horror film of British mannerism and one that intrigues far more as a mystery than an exercise in homo-erotica (in fact, the couple of occasions when the boys get it on seem to have been crow-barred awkwardly into the film, as they don’t sit well with the rest of this quietly compelling study of creepy religious and familial mistrust).

The screener disc provided was an early DVD-R variant which housed the film and nothing else: no menus, no extras.

Even so, it presented the film in a stunningly colourful 16x9 widescreen transfer with superb picture clarity. Colours are amazingly rich while never bleeding (the film was shot on HD video), while blacks are solid and images remain natural throughout.

We also get a good English 2.0 audio soundtrack. No problems on this front.

Peccadillo are planning to release UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY onto UK DVD in October 2011. It’s a good film, well-shot and edited. More pertinently, it boasts an engaging and intriguing plot that is likely to keep any viewer with a penchant for British horror of yore watching.

Quirky characters, a keen visual style and a disturbing undercurrent: UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY is good stuff. It delivers on the threat of isolation and weird rural goings-on, while examining sexual politics and the turmoil of the inner self too. All within the pretext of the horror genre.

Does that sound slightly pretentious? Well, this film maybe is. But it’s also a bloody good watch that will keep most, aside from the most homophobic, guessing as to how it’ll all pan out.

And, guess what? 63 minutes into it, and we get an incredible cameo from none other than David McGillivray as the proprietor of a very unfriendly local pub.

Isn’t it worth watching for that reason alone? If not, then watch it for the fantastic, disconcertingly amusing denouement.

Review by Stu Willis