Never Seen It! Sunday, Forgotten Frights Edition: The Cottage

You know when you’re talking to someone you think is like totally happening in a far out way and they ask if you’ve seen their favourite movie and you lie and say you seen “parts of it” because you don’t want to seem like a total pop culture pariah? Yeah, we do too—and we hate ourselves for it! That’s why we’re vowing to watch at least one movie we’ve put off, ignored, rejected or just plain-out forgotten about every other week from now on. Join us as recount the popping of our cinematic cherries, complete with awkward, over-analytical details!

Photo: impaawards.com

THE COTTAGE

DATE RELEASED: March 14, 2008 (U.K.), April 29, 2008 (direct-to-DVD U.S.)

DATE ACTUALLY WATCHED: October 22, 2011

WHY NOW? Keeping with this month’s theme of Forgotten Frights, I asked readers for their recommendations. Although I’m not so into comedy-horrors, this one seemed to take horror seriously enough, embracing gore and the gritty, desolate setting.

WHY NOT THEN? Besides being a “forgotten” horror, it’s also a Brit movie, sending it even further off my radar. On top of that, it wasn’t even released in theatres in North America, instead going straight to DVD.

EXPECTATIONS:

• A lot of blunt gore.
• Not too much of a story.
• Intense chase scenes.
• Andy Serkis proving that he is a worthwhile actor beyond CGI-ed characters.
• Not laugh-out-loud funny, but snicker funny.
• The perfect horror setting, a cottage lost deep in the thick woods, with creaky floorboards, cobwebbed corners and dusty surfaces.

WHAT I ACTUALLY GOT...

• A lot of blunt gore, bordering on too much, but not quite.
• More of a story than I expected. Actually, a complex two-part story that never delves too far but provides enough not to leave any major gaps. But along the way, far too many “what’s going on now?!” moments.
• Only two chase scenes really. So don’t trust the trailer, which gives you the assumption that there will be so many more.
• I'm still on the fence about Andy Serkis. When he's not CGI-ed, he’s unlikable, like in this film where he’s the mastermind behind the kidnapping of a woman. But there’s still hope that he’ll one day have the opportunity to show as a non-CGIed character the emotional range he showed as Caesar in The Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Or the creepy darkness of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings.
• More snickers than I thought. Contagious snickers I should add.
• A seemingly Wrong Turn-inspired setting and villain. Not original enough, but the film has enough originality otherwise to make up for it.

ONE NIGHT-IN STAND OR SECOND DATE POTENTIAL?
Although I won’t be seeing this one again, it’s opened me up to seeing more comedy-horrors, knowing that they actually have the potential to be both scary and funny, despite being a very cheesy sell.