CAUGHT *** UK 2018 Dir: Jamie Patterson. 86 mins
A beguiling riff on home invasion horror from the talented director of FRACTURED (2016). Set around the Sussex moors circa 1972, it has middle class journalist couple Aaron Davis and Mickey Sumner striving to revive their flagging careers by getting a scoop about the possible nuke-activity at the newly opened army base nearby. They’re alarmed by the random arrival of a solemn odd couple known as Mr and Mrs Blair (Cian Barry, April Pearson), who look like Jehovah’s Witnesses but – even more disturbingly – act like they’ve never seen a cup of tea and have never heard of Simon and Garfunkel. Barry and Pearson make for a fabulously detached, creepy pair of antagonists (shot through with gallows humour) in this taut, one-location spin on middle-class British thrillers like CHERRY TREE LANE. The point at which an annoyingly chipper postman is bludgeoned to death confirms the film won’t stint on unpleasantness, and a jarring alien shriek a la the 1978 INVASION OF THE BODYSNATCHERS conveys one of its many influences. Davis and Sumner are amusingly unsympathetic, while the reversal of expectation alluded to by the title gives it a pleasing old TWILIGHT ZONE feel – as does the satisfyingly downbeat ending. Director Patterson has fun with some old-school physical make-up effects involving nasty bodily fluids and bulging craniums.
Review by Steven West