Review by Adam Stephen Kelly
Stars Isabella Calthorpe, Joshua Bowman, Gemma Atkinson, Tom Felton, Cornelius Clarke, Anthony De Liseo, John Lynch, Gabriel Thompson, Peter Gadiot, Sue Scadding, Simon MacCorkindale
Written by Adam Phillips
Certification UK 18
Runtime 82 minutes
Directed by Jonathan Glendering
Supposedly a film about a rampant, ravaging werewolf, I'm not actually sure what 13Hrs is meant to be. Sure, the plot revolves around a group of drunk, pot-smoking teenagers trapped in an isolated manor house in the Sussex countryside, fleeing from a killer creature, but how you'd ever assume it to be a werewolf without knowing in advance thanks to the official synopsis, is completely beyond me. For one, you only get to see the beast for a split-second a couple of times, and when you do, it doesn't actually resemble a lycanthrope. Perhaps the werewolf in 13Hrs is the film-makers' own interpretation of the classic monster of horror, but when you make it, from what I could see, completely hairless, the mind of even the most seasoned fan of the genre, like me, is not going to connect the dots.
The presence of the creature is shown with red-tinted POV shots that zoom through the corridors of the house, all intertwined with headache-inducing quick cuts - the kind that are just so damn quick both in their transition and the actual speed of the action, that you can't see what's going on. Entire scenes make little sense because of this editing and will probably make some viewers physically sick, especially on the big screen.
13Hrs falls into just about every genre cliché, from the car that can't get started to the entire plot in general, which, as you can see, is incredibly simple and formulaic. There's nothing original about the film, and this coupled with the inability to tell what's going on most of the time leads to a very bloody, but very boring, confusing British horror. One of the producers of Neil Marshall's excellent Dog Soldiers produced it, so this is a good time to recommend watching Dog Soldiers instead if you're looking for a real good time with werewolves.
• 13Hrs premieres at the Film4 FrightFest – check out our full coverage of the festival