Author: Ariane

Review by heyuguys.com

Minimalist in everything but ambition, this horror film intelligently explores complicity and surrender in a dangerously possible near future.

This film begins with Shauna Macdonald as ‘Ruth’ trapped in a bright white cuboid with no means of escape. An unseen tormentor with a booming genderless voice commands ‘Ruth’ to do various things and she must obey. To the audience she is merely Ruth the Admin Girl with no clue as to what’s happening or where she is – just that she’s afraid and just wants to make peace with her captor and go home. But as the story of the White Chamber unfolds and we move back in time to 5 days prior to her capture, we see a completely different story to who ‘Ruth’ might actually be and what work is done in the White Chamber.

With quite minimalistic scenes and a small budget cast and crew, this dystopian sci-fi horror film takes us on a short descent into the chaotic world of “The United Kingdom. Soon.” Written and Directed by 25-year-old Paul Raschid, he produces a different sort of horror film altogether. He uses minimal amounts of blood compared to most horror films and he mainly uses the fear of the unknown to drive the story into the right direction.

Set in the United Kingdom in the very near future, the country is in an uproar as socio-economic pressures have started a civil war as the State fights rebellious militia for the power to rule. With the power of the White Chamber comes great and costly responsibilities. It seems there is nothing this big bright white box cannot do. This chamber seems to be an element of torture playing havoc on the human body and brain. There’s nothing that can’t be done once one in control of it. The performances by the two leading actors, Oded Fehr and Shauna Macdonald are solid. They execute their characters with great passion and a diversity of emotion. The supporting cast, however limited, was also fantastic which includes Amrita Acharia, Sharon Maughan, Nicolas Farrell and Candis Nergaard.

Although it’s not entirely a conventional horror film, the concept is clever and thought-provoking. It makes you think of how this country could turn out to be in such a short amount of time. Is this a purely fictitious look into our future? Or a more realistic one? The film may be alarming in places, but it certainly provides some interesting questions.