Seeking to liberate bunny rabbits or whatever, a group of young animal rights activists break into an industrial facility, thanks to inside help from the overnight guard (Furlong). However, when they are discovered and pursued by a rather more heavily-armed security team, the only way to escape is to head deeper into the complex - and what they find there is neither cute, furry nor pleased to see them. That's the plot: much as I want to stretch it out for the rest of the paragraph, there is little else of significance to be found in the script. Much the same can be said of the characters, who rarely rise above the level of cliche. We first meet them on the way to the raid. and while this is admirable from a pacing point of view, it leaves them as little more than faceless corpses-to-be. Jade (Lui) is the only one who makes any impression, displaying assertiveness quite out of place for a young woman in a horror film. Didn't she get the memo about taking a shower, running and screaming?
The rest of the cast, however, tend to behave in ways necessary to the plot, rather than anything that actually makes sense. Meanwhile, what they and the security team are being chased by, is heavily influenced by J-horror, and in particular, the aspects of that genre which have now been mercilessly flogged to death through the American remakes. While a somewhat creepy creation, Wilson's directorial style is from the "shake the camera about" school of cinematography, with an evening course in flickering the lights whenever anything supposedly scary is happening. Emphasis on the word "supposedly", because the main emotion this actually provokes is irritation. Whizzing through the first act also becomes less laudable, when you find out that this was in order to get to interminable sequences of corridor-stalking. What's the rush?
D
[June 2008]
