A city banker doesn’t take redundancy too well, and his family are on the receiving end. RICHARD PHILLIPS-JONES looks at Axed 2012.
TITLE: Axed
RELEASED: 19th February 2013
STARRING: Jonathan Hansler (Kurt Wendell), Andrea Gordon (Steph Wendell), Nicola Posener (Megan Wendell), Christopher Rithin (Jay Wendell)
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Ryan Lee Driscoll
Axed 2012 Review
When he is fired from his high powered position in the city, an over bearing and overstressed father takes his wife and teenage children for a trip to the countryside. Trouble is, he doesn’t intend for anyone to return…
This debut feature from Ryan Lee Driscoll works very effectively in building an unsettling atmosphere from the start, and establishing character traits quickly before hitting the ground running.
Performances are strong, but Axed 2012 ultimately suffers from too many moments that require too much suspension of disbelief, and some character behaviour that just doesn’t ring true.
For one thing, the family seem to take a long time before they try to escape, when it’s clear that Dad has totally lost the plot.
However, the film tries to do something different with the killer-in-the-woods template, it moves briskly enough and this, along with an excellent and genuinely unnerving lead turn from Jonathan Hansler, makes for a flawed but generally gripping road trip which horror fans should find worth taking.
Axed 2012 is a film which pretty much does what it says on the packet.
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