A Lonely Place To Die
Skillfully made and exciting thriller closes FrightFest 2011
Set to close FrightFest this year, Julian Gilbey’s A Lonely Place To Die, co-written by brother Will, is an atmospheric thriller set in the Scottish Highlands. A group of friends go on a mountaineering holiday, only to come across a young girl buried alive, and unwittingly stumble into a violent international crime ring. As they race towards the relative safety of a small town nearby, shadowy villains give pursuit, and an enigmatic group of men bear down on their position.
We are introduced to the picturesque setting via a spectacular sweeping shot across the mountains, with a haunting Gaelic soundtrack leaving us in no doubt as to the location of the action. We are thrown immediately into a tense sequence, as the first few protagonists are shown clambering up a sheer cliff face, pausing to take a photograph before being caught up in an intensely visceral sequence in which they get into very tangible danger.
The characters are perhaps the biggest strength of A Lonely Place To Die; they are carefully written to the point that dialogue is actually pretty minimal, no exposition is needed and three dimensional human characters are evoked by a skilful cast, headed by the excellent Melissa George. George seems to appear in a lot of fairly low-profile horror productions, roles which do not give her too much of a chance to shine, and while her character is hardly given any backstory here, we still find ourselves totally on the side of the heroine, thanks largely to a dynamic yet controlled performance by the lead actress. Another noteworthy performance is the villain, played by Sean Harris, a threatening presence made even more unnerving by the rounding of his character in the third act. The whole cast inhabit their characters so naturally that it is impossible not to care about the heroes, to fear the villains and to mistrust the shadier ones.
Although not an out-and-out horror film, A Lonely Place To Die effectively taps in to primal fears of heights or being buried alive in such an intense fashion that these sequences are truly exciting. Each step as they descend a sheer cliff face is a tense moment, every action scene an urgent race which the audience will find impossible not to get caught up in. The first two acts continue in this vein, proving themselves an exercise in filmmaking which really is exhilarating to watch. Sadly, the final third of the film does drop off the pace a little, becoming something of a sub-par chase thriller through a village setting. While this certainly does have its moments, the film loses some of its urgency and immediacy in moving to a more crowded environment. It is not enough, though, to ruin what is a taught British thriller, which is more than good enough to close the festival, and marks out the Gilbeys as filmmakers of some potential.
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