SCURRY (2024)

3 stars

Signature Entertainment. Digital. 6th October

A citywide panic – some kind of disaster or attack. There is a huge sink hole at a road junction. At the bottom, amongst the rubble, Mark (Jamie Costa) awakens. He screams for help as he appears to be trapped under the rubble – and even if he gets free, it’s a big, deep hole! With no response from emergency services, he uses his phone’s torch to look around. There are rumbles, meaning things could get worse any minute… especially when a rescue helicopter crashes causing more rocks to fall – however it does shift things, meaning he gets free – but he has to scramble further underground as the hole fills up leaving him more trapped. He manages to pull a shard of glass from his side leaving a large gash. He is kind of kiboshed.

He decides to venture further into the fissure that has opened up using a lighter to see his way and finds a bag which conveniently has a video camera with night vision – which means he sees a woman, who is also down there, unconscious. She awakens. Her leg is badly injured and Mark uses his belt as a tourniquet.

She is called Kate (Emalia) and is understandably frightened. ‘They’ll hear us’, she tells him as she seems to know more about what is going on than he does. ‘No one is coming… they’re all dead’. Then they hear a noise that sounds like some kind of creature. What is down there with them?

Basically a two hander, in a limited location, this hints at a larger scale problem above ground. Director Luke Sparke and screenwriter Tom Evans previously worked together on crime thriller BRING HIM TO ME (2024) and Sparke helmed the larger scale sci fi OCCUPATION (2018) and it’s follow up OCCUPATION: RAINFALL (2020) – unlike them this is a less ambitious sf horror. It makes good use of sound to invoke fear plus the inherent lack of light (they use the night vision on the video camera to see into the darkness — a useful device to keep the budget down as the effects work doesn’t have t be as good). Whilst the two actors are effective, the initially intriguing concept begins to stretch things out as tensions arise between the duo, and of course the characters both have a back story. The film could have done with some tightening in the edit.

Steve Kirkham