DVD REVIEW OF SHUDDER ORIGINAL "MARTYRS LANE" (2021)

THE PLOT:

Leah (KIERA THOMPSON) lives in a large vicarage with her teenage sister, her distant mother, and her father, the parish vicar. In the day, the house is bustling with people; at night it is dark, empty, a space for Leah's nightmares to creep into. A small, nightly visitor brings Leah comfort, but soon she will realise that her little visitor offers knowledge that might be very, very dangerous…

THE REVIEW:

If you were to be dropped into MARTYRS LANE with little to no concept of its content other than to say “it’s a bit spooky”, I wouldn’t begrudge you for wondering what the flying feck was going on for the first half hour. Soz etc. to go in hard so soon, but this is my principal gripe in what is an otherwise well presented feature from writer/director RUTH PLATT.

If you’re a parent, or prone to intense feelings during movies, it’s easy to view the film from a purely emotional standpoint and forget that, as a crafted and edited piece of cinema, it falls a little short.

It takes a real set of brass balls and a heart of stone not to feel Leah’s isolation and estrangement from her own mother, but little experience of cinema to register that something feels just a little off about how the plot progresses. Your affections for characters who may have initially engendered sympathy or, indeed, the reverse, are more or less switched up by the closing stages, therefore giving the key players a reasonably satisfying dramatic arc, but the journey, at times, feels shallow and incomplete despite the best efforts of KIERA THOMPSON and her co-star, SIENNA SAYER.

Any review you may stumble across online for MARTYRS LANE will tell you variations of the same thing - - that the lead performers, THOMPSON and SAYER, are outstanding. And it’s true; they share a light and breezy chemistry which becomes increasingly insidious as SAYER’s character’s motives become clearer, and they are absolutely pitch perfect in ramping up the tension between the pair.

Indeed, it would be true to say that no single actor involved ever drops the ball, but it’s a shame that the pacing is initially so sluggish, and that without the film’s synopsis acting as something of a road map (at least until about the half way mark), the rate and frequency at which events unfold is frustratingly discombobulating.

These problems aside, the interactions between characters feels natural, with PLATT seemingly able to switch between age and genders with ease and grace, particularly when considering the subject matter.

The script contains no saccharine sweetness and maintains an ominous, foreboding air throughout, though at times feels like it’s holding back a touch when it could, feasibly, go for the throat just a little bit more.

THE PRESENTATION:

Bizarrely, the powers that be have deigned the U.K. market worthy of a mere DVD transfer of the film, which is disappointing. I always feel that at this stage of human evolution, if you’re still rocking a DVD player you should probably crack open the pressure door on your isolation chamber and join the rest of us in the 21st century. There’s little excuse not to at least own a Blu Ray player, and even less of an excuse not to register it as the superior media format to DVD. It’s particularly distressing where MARTYRS LANE is concerned because the cinematography is really rather splendid. As you can see from the below…