Caution: this film might cause nose bleeds and ear ache. Credit: Revolver Entertainment

Cast: Arielle Kabelle, Stephen Dillane, Andrew Lee Potts, MyAnna Burin
Director: Paddy Breathnach
Screenwriter: Spence Wright
Rating: 18

Just when you thought it was safe to watch a British horror film, another horror show rears its ugly head. Centred on medical students at a hospital in a US city (the identity of which is never disclosed), Red Mist is a far cry from Flatliners to say the least.

Protagonist Cat (Anelle Kabelle) and friends work hard and party hard while newcomer Kenneth (Andrew Lee Potts) bumbles around a bit. After a hard day’s healing, Kenneth is goaded into joining the student friends in a binge drinking and pharmaceutical session that results in him slipping into a coma. After being deserted by most of the group, who see her guilt-induced mission to help as pointless, Cat configures a combination of drugs that will help Kenneth regain brain activity, and develop the power to possess nearby people, targeting those who induced his condition and forcing them to engage in depraved acts of violence. This last bit is not exactly part of the plan.

To say the film is bad would be simultaneously an understatement and an overdramatic summary. Boring is a more accurate description. Plagued by awful accents (most of the English and Irish actors speak in very weak American) and a questionable plot – marked by the aforementioned medical breakthrough – the film fails to convince in almost every way possible.

Torture porn fans can savour a degree of misguided joy in some of the more brutal killings, with lacerations, genital mutilation and crushed skulls all on offer. But anyone who prefers their horror a little more intelligently worked will no doubt find themselves asking the same old questions: “Where is the tension, who are these characters, what else is on?” In short, it’s not even good enough to enjoy for its failings.

Special features: Digital copy facility

Red Mist is out now via Revolver Entertainment

By Martin Guttridge-Hewitt