CONTAINMENT (2015)

Directed by Neil Mcenery-West, Starring: Lee Ross, Sheila Reid, Andrew Leung, Louise Brealey. Horror, UK, 2015, 77mins, Cert 15.

“Please remain calm. The situation is under control.”

Recently divorced Mark (Lee Ross) is not having a good start to his day. Awaking to find both the electricity and the water in his tower block have been turned off, he then can’t seem to open the window, the mobile phone signal appears jammed and his front-door has been glued shut. Initial suspicions that this might be some kind of prank are soon dispelled when he glances out across to the adjacent high-rise and spots a fellow resident desperately pounding his fists on his own sealed in double-glazed flat. Then, to top in all, Mark glances downward and sees HazMat (hazardous materials) suited personnel entering the block opposite whilst some kind of field hospital appears to taking shape on the communal lawn below.

First-time director Neil Mcener-West’s low-budget high-rise rift on [REC] mixed with THE CRAZIES type of scenario is proficient and lean and delivers a taunt kitchen-sink nightmare scenario. It’s focus is not so much on the reason for the ‘containment’ (there are a few cursory details offered late on regarding some kind of virus outbreak), but more about how the trapped residents react to the situation, and to each other – and that’s where the real horror is located.

As our reluctant hero, frustrated artist Mark (played with measured conviction by Lee Ross) finds himself forced by circumstances into banding together with his neighbours who, except for grouchy OAP Enid (Sheila Reid), he’s never really paid any attention to before. But thanks to the hit first ask questions later approach of bully-boy Sergei smashing through the paper-thin apartment walls in order to gather them together (safety in numbers), Mark is about to find out exactly what his neighbours’ true natures really are. Refreshingly, there aren’t any zombies resulting from this biohazard, here the threat lies within when the claustrophobic pressure of being trapped with a seemingly deadly pandemic in the air begins to take its toll mentally and physically on the remaining tenants.

Sheila Reid lightens the mood on occasions with barbed pronouncements such as: “Trust us to be the last – just like the fucking bins”, and writer David Lemon also provides her with this assessment of the residents’ predicament: “Weren’t like this during the war...At least it were some’ing you could all see...”

With clearly a very modest budget to play with, the sound design is worth its weight in gold for painting in the suggestion of an encroaching military presence of helicopters etc, and the haunting soundscape which accompanies the carefully composed shots of bleak vistas provide an effectively unsettlingly backdrop to the visceral struggles within the tower block.

Whilst the premise itself is hardly original, the film’s overall strength lies in its unsentimental and unflinching examination of quite how fragile the veneer of civilised society really is. Some of the characterisation is thin, and plot holes leave the occasional splinter, but the ruthless thrust of the narrative coupled with a trimmed-to-the-bone running time ensures the cracks don’t weaken the structure fatally. 

***(out of 5*)

      

Paul Worts