Homebound (2022)

"Ian McEwan Meets Hammer House of Horror"

Following its UK premiere at Glasgow Frightfest, Sebastian Godwin's rather decent 'mad family living in an old country house' picture is getting a cinema and digital release from Blue Finch.

Recently married Holly (Aisling Loftus) is taken by new husband Richard (Tom Goodman-Hill) to the isolated rambling old family home to meet his three children and his ex-wife, who hasn't been answering her phone and isn't there when they arrive. The three children are present, though, and rather strange they are too. There's no food in the house but the kids think nothing of helping their father catch and kill a goose. Holly quickly begins to realise that she may have ended up in the middle of a very worrying situation indeed, and she still hasn't checked out the cellar.

Clocking in at a scant 71 minutes, HOMEBOUND is nevertheless something of a delight, mixing elements of Ian McEwan (The Cement Garden) and the better episodes of old UK horror TV shows like Hammer House of Horror and Thriller, as well as the nastier European horror comics of the 1970s, the kind where an innocent girl would end up at the hands of lunatics in an isolated country location. 

Well directed (and sad to say that's actually quite the rarity amongst the modern British horror cinema currently cluttering up supermarket shelves), with decent acting and an unnerving score, HOMEBOUND is a very respectable first feature effort indeed. Highly recommended for fans of Great British Horror. Here's the trailer:

HOMEBOUND is out in UK cinemas from Blue Finch Releasing on Friday 1st April 2022 and gets released to digital on Monday 4th April 2022