I’m sort of surprised at how much luck I’m having with straight-to-video horror DVD’s lately.  Generally, I’ve got to wade through four or five awful ones before I get to a decent one, but lately the ratio has been much better.  The Cottage, a British horror-comedy starring Andy Serkis, is a tightly constructed and hilarious take on the slasher genre.  I suppose it was Shaun of the Dead that ushered in a new wave of British horror-comedy, and while that was the only one to get a theatrical release Stateside, the rest of ’em are nothing to scoff at (check out the corporate retreat slasher comedy Severance as well, you’re guaranteed a good time if horror-comedy is your thing.) 

If you took my advice on Botched a few weeks ago, and you’re reaction was, “This thing is a disjointed mess, what the hell is wrong with Todd’s eyes,” then I should more than make up for that this time around.  (I stand by my admiration for the Stephen Dorff romp, by the way, but I can understand if you were put off by its often random plot twists.)  The Cottage also starts with crime gone wrong, this time a kidnapping, and it spends a lot of time with the kidnappers and their victim before the horror really sets in, which in a lot of cases can get boring, but thanks to the wonderfully quirky characters and spot-on comic dialogue this is not the case here.  Andy Serkis is the perfect straight man to all the inspired goofball performances around him.  You kind of have to look on this one as a genre-shifter, like From Dusk Till Dawn, although the transition is much smoother with The Cottage thanks to bits of foreshadowing and a creepy warning from the small town townsfolk.  (By the way, I think Serkis is just a phenomenal actor, and here he proves he brings even more soul to a live action character than he did with the CGI Gollum and King Kong–two roles which were no small feat.)

The gore is wonderfully over-the-top disgusting, and unlike most of the comedy Hollywood produces these days, this movie never stops being funny.  It remains hysterical throughout, and manages to produce real scares as well.  It is thoroughly entertaining, and my mind didn’t drift even once.  And I have the attention span of a toddler.

Now that’s some scary shit.

Lots o’ love, Todd