Dennis Quaid, Zhang Ziyi, Lou Taylor Pucci, Patrick Fugit
Director: Jonas Ã…kerlund
Screenwriter: David Callaham

I suspect the makers of Horsemen of the Apocalypse might – MIGHT - have seen Se7en. And I suspect this because Horsemen of the Apolcalypse is basically a remake of Se7en in which the makers have apparently sat, eyes gleaming, and said ‘Se7en? Now there’s a successful film. Let’s do it again. But not with the seven deadly sins. Nah, this time we’ll use… The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. That’s plausible, right?’ 

Whilst Se7en was however a strangely beautiful film – thoughtfully composed with a distinct and affecting thread of loss and tragedy apparent throughout – Horsemen of the Apocalypse is resolutely not.  

Tracing Dennis Quaid’s emotionally distant from his two equally doleful sons following the death of his wife and their mother – he attempts to solve a sequence of grim murders seemingly centered around biblical prophecies of yes, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (War, Famine, Pestilence, Death – RE fans). Dennis Quaid is predictably hard-boiled and gravelly faced, but falls just short of authenticity. Yes, he gulps pointedly and furrows his brow with much ferocity, but it feels like a bad Harrison Ford impression rather than the channelling of any residual grief. An absence of credible emotion can be found throughout. Lou Taylor Pucci, who formerly shone as the lead in Thumbsucker, delivers a sluggishly lacksadaisical performance as the eldest son, dejectedly meandering around the set looking like he’s desperately trying to remember his lines and not to stare at the camera.

Zhang Ziyi (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) is convincingly creepy as the daughter of one of the victims and is without a doubt the best thing in the film. Her childlike gestures, ribbony limbs and dollish face lend a woozy and languid eeriness that is at times, uncomfortable to watch. And Ziyi’s 16^th Century puritan meets vintage Chanel wardrobe, all rigid lace collars and monochrome fabrics, deserve a credit of their own.

The murders themselves are almost unbearably grotesque, yet there is nothing scary about them. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is just not believable as a motif – ostensibly plucked at random, it just doesn’t ring true. Yes, the religious allegories are there, my god are they there, but the uniformly strained symbolism might as well be subtitled with ‘religion, yeah?’

Emphatically a genre movie in which its religious metaphors are ham-fistedly rendered incidental – with considerably loftier notions than its straight-to-DVD release could ever contest. If the devil is in the details, it’s conspicuous by absence in Horsemen of the Apolcalypse.

Horsemen of the Apolcalypse is out now on DVD and Blu-ray via Icon Home Entertainment

By Lara Williams