F

F
OPTIMUM RELEASING
RELEASED 17 September 2010

Never has a film title been more apt. ‘F’ is a horror movie set in a school, and the title indicates the grade given to a school test paper. Denoting a ‘Fail’, the film is self-descriptive!

‘F’ actually starts incredibly promising, with teacher Robert Anderson (David Schofield) getting assaulted in his classroom and later threatened with court action by the child’s parents because he gave an ‘F’ grade, which ‘demeaned’ the child in front of the class. At this point, I thought the film was going to go on and say something about violence in the classroom. But it didn’t. Months later, Anderson is back at work, although with an obvious drink problem that the school is delicately trying to sort out without getting involved in any sort of legal mess themselves. Anderson holds a detention after school, and with security guards and a couple of other teachers and pupils still in school, find themselves under attack as it gets dark by an unrecognisable gang of hoodies (who comically jump around in silence like ninjas). You’re supposed to presume one of these hoodies is the boy who assaulted the teacher, but we’re never actually told.

There have been some great British horror movies in the last few years (The Descent, The Children, Eden Lake) and ‘F’ only reminds you how good they are. It’s incredibly amateur on a story-telling level (nothing makes any sense, and you don’t even discover why anything is happening), and the director shoots proceedings as if he’s seen a few horror movies and thinks he’s got the general gist of it. Except ‘scary’ scenes move at a snail’s pace, and there’s zero imagination applied to make you jump. I can honestly say ‘F’ is the least scary film I’ve ever seen. I would happily have fallen asleep if I wasn’t so astonished at how boring it all was.

The script is charmless, the gore is tame, the music is crap, and the cinematography makes everything look green, grungy, and nothing like a school! The only redeeming feature of ‘F’ is that I’ve seen most of the actors onscreen before, and there’s no bad acting from this experienced cast.

Sorry Johannes Roberts, but you’ve written and directed the worst British horror movie I’ve ever seen.

ONE OUT OF FIVE