Review by Adam Stephen Kelly
Stars Neve McIntosh, Shaun Dooley, Linzey Cocker | Written by Colin O'Donnell
UK Certification 18 | UK RRP £14.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 70 minutes | Directed by Lawrence Gough
Salvage is a British independent horror film with a hell of a lot of potential in its concept and an intriguing first half that really pulls you in. Sadly it chooses not to sustain what makes the first half so enjoyable and the movie quickly falls apart after 35 minutes.
When a shipping container washes ashore, a special ops unit raids a nearby cul-de-sac and fences it off, disabling power and breaking all communications, forcing those who live in the quiet area to be locked inside their own homes without knowledge of what's going on. Amidst the chaos, a mother is desperate to reach good terms with her teenage daughter, who wants nothing more to do with her.
With the focus on the mother and the guy who she picked up the night before isolated in the house, the film takes a claustrophobic and very real direction. They're both clueless as to why the military are outside, and soon everything descends into paranoia and bloodshed, with dead bodies mounting up wherever they turn. The above all takes place in the first half of the film, which was enjoyable and such an interesting idea—the director talks in the extras about his penchant for horror movies about the human condition and emotions, rather than just blood and guts and scares, although Salvage is quite a gory film. The psychological aspect is all there for the first half hour, but once the reason as to the military lockdown is revealed, it just becomes another creature on the loose movie, just like in Danny Boyle's Sunshine, and not a very good one at that, degenerating into cliché after boring cliché. I really would have preferred it if this film wasn't a horror, and kept on the road I was hoping it was going as an emotional thriller.
Continuing his exploration into the personalities and emotions of people, director Lawrence Gough's next film, “The Drought”, is to be about a family's struggle for survival and their attempt to break into London for water after the planet suffers a devastating drought. It certainly sounds like it has potential, just like Salvage, but will Gough learn from the mistakes of this one?
EXTRAS ★★ Cast and crew interviews, 10-minute behind the scenes video, audio commentary with the director, writer and two of the cast members.