Gina Philips (Jeepers Creepers), the only American in an otherwise exclusively young, attractive and thoroughly dislikeable British cast, plays Anna, a nosey archæologist who on returning to a disused children’s hospital built on an ancient plague site meets a group of joyriding scumbags; torture and terminations swiftly commence. What starts with a theme (mind-altering spores) and a sense of steely claustrophobia reminiscent of Jacob’s Ladder quickly moves into visceral Hellraiser territory with a nod to the newly-deified Guillermo del Toro and vague meditations on the nature of birth, the corruption of childhood trust and notions of sanctuary.
Special mentions to Eastenders’s Kellie Shirley, seen here as a heavily-pregnant goth who spends most of her brief life insane, naked and covered in blood, and a cracking soundtrack of crackling electronics and disembodied, almost inaudible vocal samples worthy of Cabaret Voltaire or Throbbing Gristle.
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