Stalker Review

“Hey,” I thought as Stalker’s opening scene began; a sequence in which a young woman runs through some woods in the magic hour. “This looks just like that short film I made in media studies at sixth form!” A rather unfortunate indictment to be sure, but hey, I learnt a lot from media studies. Ha ha ha!

Stalker is a remake/reimagining/whatever of the 1976 video nasty Exposé, in which struggling author Paula Martin (Brecon) relocates to a spooky old house in the middle of nowhere with her PA Linda (March) in order to write her new book, whereupon bad shit starts to go down as Paula battles her personal demons. It’s directed by Martin Kemp. The same Martin Kemp who was in Spandau Ballet and Eastenders. That guy.

To cut a long story short, to say Stalker is derivative is to insult the honest, not very hardworking name of derivativeness. It fancies itself as a tribute to 1970′s Hammer Horrors. What you get is a sort of low-rent version of The Shining crossed with a film that I can’t name as it would kind of spoil the INCREDIBLY OBVIOUS TWIST, but for the astute reader, it rhymes with ‘Tight Pub’.

Why do I find it hard to write the next line? I want the truth to be told: the script is terrible, the ‘shocks’ are obvious and the acting sub-par. Kemp can frame a shot, but not in an ‘I hear this film is awful, but it has some nicely framed shots, let’s go see it’ kind of way. Which is unfortunate. He also elects to use a very washed-out, pale palette for the film, which looks interesting for about five minutes, but it takes more than the decision to make everything look wishy washy to demonstrate actual directorial flair.

That said, the film was made for no money and the cast all waived their fees, so obviously Stalkerwas made for the fun of it rather than for any great artistic purpose. It’s still a stinker though and it would wrong to call it anything else. But if you simply must go see a British directorial debut by an actor cum musician this year, go see… Paddy Considine’s Tyrannosaur. Because it doesn’t suck. I’m sure Martin Kemp won’t mind; he’s got the power to know, he’s indestructible.