Tormented: Beating the bullies

May 20 2009 Surrey Herald

BILLED as a sexy, scary horror film, with a few old faces from the original Skins line-up on board, it's hardly surprising that lazy comparisons to the E4 show and cult 90s horror trilogy Scream have been made. And to be frank, the likeness to either is pretty slim.

Justine (Tuppence Middleton) is the prim and proper head girl of a posh suburban grammar school. Having recently been accepted to Oxford, Justine's glee is topped off with an invite to a party from Alexis (Dimitri Leonidas), one of the coolest guys in school (apparently).

But it soon becomes clear that Alexis and his gaggle of 'too cool for school' buddies aren't as awesome as she thinks.

They are soon exposed as callous bullies, who pick on the pupils in the school they deem not worthy of being in their presence.

Their main target was Darren Mullet (Calvin Dean), who they nicknamed Shrek, an obese, asthmatic bullied to death by the evil group.

And it's here the story descends into the ridiculous, as the deceased sixth-former comes back to life looking more like the Scottish ogre than ever (he just happens to be green this time round).

He sets about seeking his brutal revenge on the spoilt in-crowd with a relentless attack on anyone who ever put him down. But it's far from being remotely scary.

The film does have its moments, but more often than not you're laughing because the sequences are so bad, rather than actually amusing.

It's always a little disappointing when a British film (Pathe, BBC Films, Screen West Midlands and Slingshot) promises so much but ends up providing so little. Tormented fails to set itself apart from any other teen horror film we've seen before. Ultimately, it's not cool enough to be Skins and it's not clever enough to be Scream.

Film facts

Genre: Teen/ Horror/ Comedy Director: Jon Wright Cast: Alex Pettyfer, Tuppence Middleton, April Pearson, Dimitri Leonidas, Calvin Dean, Georgia King, Larissa Wilson, Tom Hopper, Olly Alexander, Mary Nighy Did you know?: This is April Pearson's first role since leaving the cast of Skins as Michelle Verdict: Most of the cast are pretty forgettable, so don't expect the film to set the world a light