London Voodoo (DVD)

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Liked it
Story	Good
Characters / Performances	Satisfactory
Special Effects	Standard
How does it compare to similar films?	Satisfactory

Advantages:	Unusual British horror movie
Disadvantages:	Nothing new for the most part

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

If you're not a fan of horror, then don't be put off by the cover of this 2004 movie; coming off more like a BBC or ITV drama offering, this borderline horror offering will have little to offend anyone.

Moving from New York to London Lincoln, (Doug Cockle) Sarah (Sara Stewart), and their young child begin to settle into their Victorian terraced house. When renovation begins on the house however something rather unpleasant is bought to the surface, in the cellar is what appears to be a shrine. Soon the world and his wife start popping by to share a long buried secret with the newcomers about the houses past, most notably the terrible fire that caused death in the very basement as the discovered shrine. But then from nowhere Sarah starts to get forgetful, and then a man turns up throwing a dirty tissue through the door saying "Put it under you wife's pillow when you make love!" Something is not the same at home, and it seems that the new nanny Kelly (Vonda Barnes) is in no mood to help things.

Looking at the cover for this DVD there was nothing on earth that would make me watch this, it looks like a cheap nasty low budget horror movie; but the truth is far from this, yes it is a low budget movie, but it certainly does not look like a low budget one. London Voodoo takes a traditional horror yarn and puts a new spin on things, a story of possession and a dodgy nanny is nothing new by a long shot; and I won't pretend that this is anything that new, but what it is, is something very different. Once the typical aspects of the story are played out, the possession portion normally that would call at this point for an exorcist is put aside for a story of Voodoo in the heart of London, furthermore aspects of Voodoo that are far from typical.

I mentioned at the start that this is a lot like a TV drama, and this is really the best way to describe this movie, and a very good one at that. Considering this is aimed squarely at the horror market it's remarkably tame, that is I guess if you excuse Sarah Stewarts character urinating in a saucepan before flinging it on a poor woman's face. I'd go as far as to say that maybe the movie was intended for the TV audience, as the movie opens there are no "Blah Blah" presents instead going straight for the title "London Voodoo". The movie has that sort of TV sheen about it, and at any time that you think things might be on their way to becoming a little on the graphic side, the camera shuts off and moves to the next scene. There is even a reasonably low body count; a two fingered man could count them on his fingers. With these things moving against the movie, I have to say I really enjoyed it, there is a reasonable amount of suspense, and despite the certain level of familiarity to other movies, there is also that unexpected factor that keeps bobbing up every time it gets the chance.

All movies have that nagging little issue that goes hand in hand with unusual incidents, here where anything starts to go wrong the fax machine starts printing letters all of which say "Sign Here!" the same fax machine has 666 written on it by Sarah in lipstick before anything in the movie started go go wrong.

Shot in Bow, the movie shows a very clean living version of London. And it's a sad fact that the vision of the area seen in the movie is nothing like the reality, yes Bow is certainly one of London's better areas but nowhere near as upmarket as London Voodoo tries to convince you it is, on the basis of this movie I could quite easily see youngsters heading to London to make their fortune.

London Voodoo's only really familiar face is that of Sara Stewart who shot to TV fame as the diabolical mother in the Channel Four show Sugar Rush, she has a bit of a thing for sugar here funnily enough. The American accent that she puts on is the movies big flaw, it just does not sound right at any point. The character of Kelly played by Vanda Barnes is somewhat of an enigma too me, I know this actress, you see here around all over the place yet according to the Internet Movie Database she has a celluloid tally of two movies, this and a short film from 2006 called Fragile. All the stars perform well, although some of the extras on a Voodoo scene need to be put back in their box.

The DVD is the UK is released on Marc Morris and Jake West's Nucleus label, not quite the calibre or standard of their other releases in respect of notoriety, in fact I doubt had it not been for this release that nobody would ever have heard of London Voodoo, it was after all one of the labels first releases but it's a well deserved release.

In respect of special features I can't really comment on them, on two different DVD's I was unable to get more than 6 minutes in the making of documentary. There are a string of other Nucleus DVD trailers including Gwendoline, Fausto 5.0, The Ugliest Woman In The World, Between Your Legs and Ghost Ship.

The most interesting aspect of all about London Voodoo is its pretty hard to get hold of, Play.com is always sold out, as is Amazon, Lovefilm always has "A likely long wait" flash up if you try to rent the movie. So this must say something of the movie, after all a certain amount is always produced by a manufacturer, maybe this is not so obscure as I first believed.

Spencer Hawken 09/08