Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Samantha Bond, Malachi Pullar-Latchman, James Vance, Hannah Traylen, Nick Moran, Nobuse Jnr, Ross Coles, James Faulkner, Larry Lamb, Louis Walwyn, Duncan Casey, Heather Tracy, Chris Porter, Matt Addis, Katrina Syran.
What serves as an inspiration on screen can be found to have come from a source of truth, and whilst that can be seen readily in an action film, a love story, even a political drama, to witness such a film based within the horror genre is perhaps a deeper mystery to fathom; and yet if you move away from the sight of ghouls, ghosts, unmentionable beings, then you can see where the true monsters lay…the image of ourselves staring at us from on high on the silver screen.
To see a monster brought to life, you don’t need prosthetics, overblown gore, or even a convoluted plot in which ancient curses reveal an end of the world apocalypse, you just need to exaggerate the face and feelings of a particular section of society by the smallest degree, and as in the film Hounded, what you have is a psychological natural thriller with the horror of humanity in its true fierce glare.
To seek revenge is to give into the bitterness of the situation, but in some cases, it could be argued that it is the only reasonable course of action to undertake. Hounded amplifies this by a simple premise, the code and contract of the homeowner and the would-be burglar, one where you have the right to defend your property, but in which thanks to a gap in the social market which sees justice denied many, has a novel, and sickening way in which to act upon revenge.
Horror is the suspension of disbelief, the knowledge that the creatures in the closet are not real, and yet you separate a person by just one degree from the social niceties, and you have the truth of the genre, that one person can see a swathe of the population fight for their right to live.
The British class system is its own horror, one going back generations and forced to still exist by the propping up of deference and unearned respect. That adherence is the underplay to the film, and with the superb Samantha Bond in devilish form as landowner Katherine Redwick, and Nick Moran in a role that is almost unrecognisable, Hounded is a particularly thought-provoking premise to which can be upheld as a prime example of a horror only one social decision taken too far, like The Wicker Man it is a tale warped by rural traditions, and the acceptance of a system in place. Ian D. Hall