Harold's Going Stiff (2011)

A new disease, Onset Rigours Disease, is spreading across England. Seemingly affecting only males, in its early stages joints begin to stiffen; as the disease progresses confusion sets in, followed by facial lesions and a total loss of personality, joins by violent outbursts. Unsurprisingly the disease becomes knows as "Zombification", and groups of vigilantes form to protect their communities from the threat, or perceived threat, these "zombies" offer.

The documentary style movie follows Harold Gimble, the first (and slowest progressing) sufferer of ORD, and Penny, a nurse sent to help him as his joints stiffen, and he faces a decline into a state many feel may be worse than death.

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For one reason or another I've fallen out of the habit of reviewing movies... in fact I haven't reviewed anything since my last review for this very blog almost a year ago, and I decided that the Halloween build-up would be a perfect time to "get back on the horse". I decided to break myself back in easily, and chose a horror comedy.

As you may have gathered from my own synopsis above, this was not the movie I expected it to be.

A touching film about friendship, illness, and fear, Harold isn't without its funny moments - most notably some The Office style awkwardness, but the DVD packaging's promise of a full-on comedy in the style of Sean of the Dead does the movie no favours at all; by sending me in expecting to have my ribs tickled, rather than my heart strings plucked, I spent the first half of the movie resenting it for what it wasn't, rather than enjoying it for what it was.

If you go in expecting action, gore, and belly laughs, prepare to be disappointed; but go in expecting a movie about the human condition, and you're in for a low budget gem.

The full version of this review will be published exclusively at The Cinephiliacs. Here

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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.

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.