THE BORDERLANDS
What Lies Beneath
RELEASED OUT NOW! 2014 | 15 | Blu-ray
Director Elliot Goldner
Cast Gordon Kennedy, Robin Hill,
Aidan Mcardle, Luke Neal
You’d be forgiven for skipping this British horror when it debuted. Not only was it a found-footage film emerging when enthusiasm for the genre had all but burned out, but it was saddled with a bland title and a clichéd poster (a Cabin In The Woodsriffing Rubik’s Cube church.)
A decade on, The Borderlands has acquired a cult following, with good reason. For starters, it’s a rare found footage film with bulletproof reasoning behind the conceit, centred on a team of Vatican investigators as they look into strange events in a recently reopened church. All three wear headcams to document the process, and key locations are fitted with CCTV.
Like the best found-footage films, it manages to raise the hairs on the back of your neck using very little: sinister creaks and rumblings; ominous video glitches; indistinct forms in the dark.
In large part the product of improvising around the script, the central relationship between world-weary priest Deacon (Absolutely’s Gordon Kennedy) and tech geezer Gray (Robin Hill – also the editor on Ben Wheatley films like Kill List) adds plenty of verisimilitude, thanks to the latter’s inane conversational style.
The increasingly claustrophobic finale climaxes in a manner that lingers unpleasantly in the mind. Just try your best to put aside the idea that this might all be taking place in Stoneybridge...
Extras The great thing about this Second Sight package is how little the bonuses overlap. Kennedy and Hill team up again in a good-humoured interview (30 minutes), shot in a church used as a location. Producer Jennifer Handorf (30 minutes) proves to be a mine of interesting information. Effects guy Dan Martin (16 minutes) presents a surprisingly absorbing show-and-tell on movie slime (maybe the first ever bonus to mention bovine obstetrics lubricant). All four are brought together for a chatty, pleasingly scene-specific commentary. Plus: an archival featurette (32 minutes). The Limited Edition release adds a 70-page booklet and six art cards. Ian Berriman
The climax was shot in Chislehurst Caves in Kent – a location also used in Inseminoid and 1972 Doctor Who story “The Mutants”.