CINEMA: Tormented

Yes, it’s yet another teenage, bloodfest horror flick, but this time the kids are not in high school, they’re in a British school and there’s actually a serious message behind all the screams and silliness.

Welcome to suburbia and posh grammar school Fairview High. Here, the pouting princes and queen bees are Bradley (Alex Pettyfer), Alexis (Dimitri Leonidas) and their gang, and Tasha (April Pearson) and her followers. Head Girl Justine (Tuppence Middleton) steers well clear of them all, but when bullied fellow pupil Darren (Calvin Dean) commits suicide, the whole school, including all the nerds, goths and emos who never made it into the in-crowd, are thrown together in horrible circumstances. Although overweight Darren may be dead and buried, his ghost is out for vengeance against everyone in the school who bullied and tormented him. Soon, pupils are dropping like tenpins, dying from decapitation, drowning, scalpel slashes, penis chopping and guillotining.

Although the movie is played for laughs and has a definite whiff of MTV about it, its anti-bullying message comes through clear and strong. There are also a couple of sex scenes where the safe sex message is never mentioned but illustrated through the use of condoms. It’s firmly aimed at the teen market with the gore being of the blood sprayed across the whole room variety rather than anything remotely realistic and isn’t at all scary.

However, it does act as a showcase for plenty of young British talent with Olly Alexander as nerdy Jason impressing and Tom Hopper as Bradley’s minder Marcus coming on like a fresh-faced Freddie Flintoff.

Dee Pilgrim