The Unforgiving, 2010.
Written and Directed by Alastair Orr.
Starring Ryan Macquet, Craig Hawks, Claire Opperman and Michael Thompson.
SYNOPSIS:
Two survivors are the only link to a spate of killings that has plagued a desolate highway on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
Taking its cue from various torture porn fare like Saw and Hostel, The Unforgiving is a topsy turvy, chronologically disordered tale of three people stranded on the South African R106 freeway, prisoners of a gas mask wearing serial killer. Beginning with Rex Dobson (Ryan Macquet) awaking and finding himself tethered by a chain to big rock, the film gradually introduces via flashbacks (and flash-forward cuts), Alice (Claire Oppeman) and Vincent (Craig Hawks) who are also being held in the remote shell of a house.
As the film progresses it becomes clear that one (or more) of the prisoners are not what they seem and the editing has fun playing around with the viewer’s suspicions as it cuts back and forth between the interviews the survivors give to Detective Hirsch (Michael Thompson). The story is one of the film’s stronger points, while the dialogue does not fully do justice to the characters as they sometimes resort to traditional horror dialogue that goes against the grain of the decent concept. The script does, however, throw up a curse word that will become a firm favourite in my vocabulary as one character curses another as a ‘Fuck-Knuckle’.
The Unforgiving has a good time skewing the moral compass of it’s characters and doesn’t offer up an easy resolution that clearly lays out who is good and who is evil, it just imbues the characters with the motivations and histories to show that most people could resort to violent acts given a nudge by events beyond their control, be they long in the past or relatively recent.
Director/ writer Alastair Orr makes the most of what must have been a low budget and his direction, whilst sometimes falling back on too many hand held, shaky close ups, is relatively assured and shows promise. With the budget low, the film is shot on digital and has the requisite harsh, bleached out look that its setting would demand. Considering that this is Orr’s first feature, it has to be said that he handles his duties well but could sometimes remove the camera from the immediate vicinity of the violence and allow the audience to watch from a more removed point of view, as the camera sometimes is so close to the action and seemingly caught up in the frenzy of violence that it can be hard to tell clearly what is happening. That being said, the film is not overpowered by senseless gore and, in fact, the characters are given more space to develop than many other ultra-low budget horrors.
The acting, whilst sometimes marred by the aforementioned dialogue lapses into cliché, is steady, with the actors giving their all and manifesting the skewed and unpredictable nature their characters well. Michael Thompson does well as Detective Hirsch, giving a good performance as an assured law man with something vaguely dangerous lurking beneath the surface. It is Ryan Macquet who is probably the stand out though as he twists and turns through despair, fear and horror, eventually morphing into something quite different from what you would initially expect of the character as the film reaches it’s climax.
All together, despite its short running time (clocking in at 1hr 13 minutes), The Unforgiving offers up a decent tale of subverted morality and unpredictable characters that transcends its low budget and sometimes clichéd dialogue. Despite its flaws, it would be interesting to see what would become of the director were he given a bigger budget and took a step back from the horror to let it play itself out, rather than getting too up close and personal.
Alex Williams
Movie Review Archive
Originally published March 28, 2011. Updated April 10, 2018.
