Punch, 2023.
Directed by Andy Edwards.
Starring Kierston Wareing, Jamie Lomas, Mark Sears, Faye Campbell, and Alina Allison.
SYNOPSIS:
A killer disguised as Mr. Punch stalks a young woman the night before she leaves her seaside town for university.
When you look back, there aren’t many horror movies set in British seaside towns, which is something of a missed opportunity as, despite supposedly being places of fun and having a good time, most of them are dreary, run down and somewhat creepy, seemingly begging for a filmmaker to exploit the darker side of living by the sea.
Filmmaker Andy Edwards has attempted to address this with Punch, a slasher movie that is clearly looking at the current trend of Terrifier-inspired nasties but adding a little bit of folklore into the mix; after all, it just wouldn’t be British if there wasn’t any weird backstory to it all, and is there anything weirder in British culture than Punch & Judy? Try explaining the concept to someone from another country and see what reaction you get.
Before heading back to university, Frankie (Alina Allison) wants to have one final night out in her coastal hometown with her friends, which she does with devastating results as the young woman is stalked by a local legend wearing a Mr. Punch mask and wielding a baseball bat, who seems intent on killing as many people as he can until he gets to his intended target. Surely the legend can’t be true, or is there more to it?
Well, it isn’t a massive surprise, but Punch is not a movie trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead, Andy Edwards carefully weaves in bits of mythology and folklore, tipping you off to where it is all going, before Mr. Punch becomes more than just a whisper amongst the locals and the bloodbath begins. It is a slow burn getting there but once the killer is fully on the rampage then the bloody deaths and freaky one-liners take centre stage, although it is sometimes difficult to work out what Mr. Punch is saying, but wasn’t that always the case with Punch & Judy?
Aside from the gory kills, what Andy Edwards does manage to capture is the sense of isolation and despair that living in a sleepy seaside town provokes. Yes, there are funfairs and arcades to entertain the tourists, but when they are closed, what else is there to do? You can totally understand Frankie’s desire to escape, and, thanks to some realistic writing and grounded performances from the leads (some of the secondary characters are a little tiresome and annoying), Punch does have a soap opera feel in its first act that adds to the desperate realism. Naturally, realism is out of the window later on, but the contrast of the two approaches works well and allows for a satisfying setup and payoff.
The real takeaway from Punch, though, is what a potential sequel could bring, as the way the story plays out leans heavily into folk horror, and with plenty more material to be mined from that, along with a bigger budget meaning more inventive and gruesome kills, then Mr. Punch could well be a new horror villain worth developing into something more elaborate. As it stands, Punch is a fun, albeit flawed, British slasher movie, but as an introduction to a possible franchise it has potential written all over it. Let’s hope it happens.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
