Sunday 19 October 2014

Elfie Hopkins (2012)

Aka:  (spoiler in alternate title, Highlight to read) Elfie Hopkins: Cannibal Hunter


Elfi Hopkins is a 22 year old slacker and animal lover, who lives in a dull little village where the only thing people to do to pass the time is hunt.
Not one for the hunting, Elfi, With her best (and only) friend, Dillon, occupies her self with the 'detective' games she's played since she was little.
When big city family, The Gammons, move to the village, they soon have the other villagers abuzz with tails of bespoke holiday packages (the Gammons's line of work), and before long the residents of the sleepy hamlet dashing off to the four corners of the globe.
Or do they? Elfi Hopkins is on the case...


The strangest thing about this movie is that the horror element is the twist in the last act, meaning that in order to reach the audience to whom it might appeal, the marketing has to contain spoilers.

And so, Having read the DVD cover to establish this was in fact a horror film, I went in knowing the twist, but not knowing that it was a twist, and then waiting for it to happen.

Right up until the reveal, it comes across in tone and appearance like a Sunday afternoon kids film, but with swearing. In fact, at 22 years old Elfi is entirely too old; if she and Dillon were teenagers, their habit of investigating non existent crimes would make a lot more sense.

Is the movie any good? I'm really not sure... It's not great, by any stretch, but it's impossible to enjoy properly, or judge fairly, with the twist blown.

If I'm completely honest though, I suspect without the waiting for a known reveal, the first 2/3rds of the film would probably have failed to hold my attention.

Besides, given the fact that virtually everyone who watches the movie will know what's coming, as I did, maybe it should be judged that way?

If so, I honestly wouldn't bother. As always, I hate to kick an independent movie, but it's neither quirky enough to be funny, nor serious enough to be straight. As a half hour or 45 min short, I think it could have been really good, as a feature... Meh.



Disclaimer:
If you look through the archives, you'll see that I've been using "Bought from Poundland" as a tag since at least 2011.


At the end of October 2013 I decided that all of my 2014 movies would be purchased from Poundland, and began buying up horror movies, to ensure I would have enough come October 2014.

In March 2014 I took a part time job at Poundland.

In accordance with the companies social media policy, in September 2014 I contacted Poundland's social media team to check that I would be okay to carry on with my plan to use the "bought from Poundland" tag.

I have been given the go-ahead on condition that I make the following clear:


All the reviews on this blog are entirely the opinion of Will Tingle, the reviews are not endorsed by Poundland in any way and (as should be obvious from some of the more scathing ones) are certainly not reviews I have been paid to write.

In short: The views expressed in this blog are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Poundland or it's owners, shareholders, or  management.

1 comment:

  1. I watched this one a year or so ago and thought pretty much the same. I was expecting much more from it.

    ReplyDelete