By David Dent
Ellie Ducles and Riz Moritz play, respectively, the notorious Thea (definitely not Thelma) and Louise, a pair of YouTubers whose show, ‘They Deserve it’, sees the pair rob from the rich and entitled and redistribute to the poor and needy. Emboldened by their popularity, Thea and Louise egg each other on to bolder and bolder adventures.
As we join them they’re off to a country pile in deepest Wales, where a high end fashion advert is being filmed; their challenge is to break into the house, liberate the clothes being modelled, and scarper. But when Thea and Louise finally locate the seemingly deserted place, all is clearly not well. By reviewing production footage on a discarded laptop, they witness an awful incident that is the prelude to the awakening of an ancient, dark force. And it’s only thanks to the police, who re-assembled events from available recovered footage, that we get to understand the horror that unfolded.
I can’t give too much away about the plot of this British found footage movie, except to mention that a lot of its appeal lies in the change of tone from its wittier, lighter first half – where a lot of the fun is witnessing the urban Youtubers getting to grips with the countryside – to a darker second act, and in the meshing of the two storylines. Along with the other cast members Ducles and Moritz largely improvise their shtick and it’s a relief that this works perfectly; you might actually want to watch ‘They Deserve it’.
Director Matthew Butler-Hart’s choice of location – Abercynrig House in Brecon – is perfect for the hand held shenanigans one expects from an FF experience, and while Dagr does descend into running around and screaming for the last 30 of its brief 77 minutes, the whole thing is handled with a panache that injects new life into a sub genre that everyone – me included – thought had breathed its last.
Bloody Flicks 