Audience Member
A film which could possibly have some realism within its concept yet is nothing more than a low budget British B movie revolving around pointless violence and foul language. When three friends set out to Wales for a reason that slipped me by, they visit a local pub whereby it is clear they are perceived as outsiders to the local 'inbreds'. When they encounter the local madman in the inn, they realise he is not someone to be crossed, despite having already hurled abuse at him when they crossed paths on the road earlier that morning. It was this incident that set the psychopath on a revenge mission to rid his beloved surroundings of these three cockney strangers by whatever means necessary. Regretting their earlier taunting and lack of respect when the farmer comes hunting them down, the three flea in separate directions in an attempt to avoid crossing paths once again. Alas, not all are successful in their escape as we witness some old school torture and execution techniques, but nothing that totally shocks or surprises. The lack of funding equals a lack of gore with a large majority of scenes left to the imagination. There's a real feeling of predictability about the ending in this one, which spoils the main event as a spectacle. It's ok for a cheap watch but with no famous faces or the opportunity to see anything original, it doesn't hold the greatest appeal to recommend, and will undoubtedly be just another horror flick ticked off the list.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/11/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Probably the worst British films I've ever seen although to be expected being a Welsh production. Being from Wales, Cardiff to be precise, comparing the inward looking inhabitants of rural Wales to mountain men of the like featured in Deliverance is sometimes done as a joke to highlight the separation between city and country, but nobody believes that the two, in the 21st Century are actually comparable in any serious way.
Except maybe for writer/director Chris Crow. This entire film plays out on the supposition that well spoken landowners from mid-Wales experience the same sort of poverty and isolation that mountain men do in deepest Appalachia. The portrayal of Appalachians in American cinema as backward savages is seen as being controversial even with the extreme social and environmental conditions in parts of the region, so the idea that that movie stereotype exists in mid-Wales is not only controversial but preposterous.
The villain, Mr Parry rants and raves about strangers coming and taking his land and how he and his "daddy" (the Welsh are starting to speak like Appalachians now) used to burn down English holiday homes to keep the invaders out and has some swastikas tattooed on his body. This makes the film even more ridiculous, as David Schofield is clearly a well spoken Welsh actor, unable to grasp the more vulgar end of Welsh dialects, and can seemingly only say "bastard" and "fucker".
The script is appalling and deals primarily in unnatural speech patterns for the Welsh accent, which for anyone who hears real life accents regularly is irritating. The film seems proud of the use of the word "fuck" and as it drags on, it's use exponentially increases. One dimensional characters are here in abundance although mostly realistically portrayed by the three English outsiders, which may be because they didn't have to concentrate on buying into any sort of plot that would explain their trip to Mid-Wales; the reasons given here (a dodgy tax evading business deal, inexplicably to take place in a rural backwater) are so flimsy and easily discarded later on that this undermines the premise from the off.
The shambolic filming of this film could have been overlooked with a decent script. The actors are decent, so the shaky cam and bad lighting are rendered not as lethal to the overall film quality as they could have been, but couple those flaws with the threadbare and intellectually redundant script, and the fact that the shot composition, sound and lighting actually decrease in quality as the film progresses make this into how-to of bad film making.
The issues that Chris Crow identifies in this film are actually real, to some degree, and it is my belief that there is something to be said about that, but what's being said here is simply a message being relayed in the laziest way possible. Exploring social and political ideas through pulp horror by utilising a stock Hollywood concept is trite and cliched and if it is going to be done, it's on the writer and the director to make sure that there is substance behind the style. Chris Crow likely decided he wanted to make a Welsh Deliverance long before he'd figured out any reasoning behind how such events could come to pass, and it shows. "The rural wilds of Wales" are quite simply not that rural, and certainly not that wild.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
01/31/23
Full Review
Audience Member
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If you happen to see Devil's Bridge on TV late at night and you were incredibly bored it's worth watching as a B movie thriller that would easily pass the time. But under any other circumstances it's hard to recommend Devil's Bridge at all, it struggles to even meet the standards of your average cat and mouse horror flick. The problems with it are fairly straight-forward, it's neither as gory as you'd want it to be, and not as supsensefully thrilling as it needs to be. The performances are decent and certain scenes are directed with style but it fails to meet it's primary target which is to scare us. There are certainly some plainly obvious good intentions throughout, theirs a general atmosphere that the director is trying to do something similar to Wolf Creek with an underlaying substance about the war between the classes but even though it makes good use of the incredibly slim budget it has it doesn't have any suspense which is simply down to the fact that it's consistenly predictable. I personally wanted a lot more gore, you can splatter the screen with as much blood as as you could dream of even with an incredibly miniature budget. In the end, it just doesn't cut it, it gives you a taste with some of it's ambitions but it just leaves you feeling very unsatisfied and sigh inducingly dissapointed.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/27/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Slightly amateurish though some occassional shots look great, lacks wit and is shy of real menace. I do like Bill especially during the pub scene. Bill needs a couple of mates to bring some proper nasty. Nice ending even if it is very obvious.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/05/23
Full Review
Audience Member
this movie was awesome reminded me a lot like wolf creek
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/16/23
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Audience Member
Pretty decent, madman hunts the city folk, movie. Low budget and with requisite unpleasant protagonists for the killer to execute with impunity, the movie is fairly by the numbers but tries a few interesting turns and is oddly watchable.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
Full Review
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