Review by Tristan Bishop
When non-horror fans ask me why I am so besotted with my favourite genre, I tend to give them the following reason: I believe that even bad horror films are interesting as they reflect, more so than any other genre, the changing fears and obsessions of different cultures over the years. From nuclear paranoia of the 1950’s to the Vietnam-era pessimism of Night Of The Living Dead and ‘new horror’ onto the ‘War on Terror’-influenced proliferation of torture porn in recent years, horror films (and especially successful ones) hold the proverbial mirror up to our collective psyches.
Citadel is a film which is not without precedent here. The term ‘hoodie horror’ has been bandied around for a few years to describe films such as F (2010), Eden Lake (2008) and The Disappeared (2008), and which perhaps had its genesis in a certain French film from a couple of years earlier which I will not name due to the possibility of a spoiler. The Hoodie Horror subgenre plays with British society-as-a-rule’s fear of a feral youth underclass – the hoodie/’chav’, who obscure their faces, live on benefits in council housing, carry knives and hunt in packs. Their perceived status is perhaps stirred up somewhat by the media, who, like the horror film, tend to emphasise what scares people in order to sell their products –although thankfully films generally don’t push what they portray to be ‘the truth’. The pinnacle of this chavsploitation genre is Harry Brown (2009), a Death Wish-alike vigilante film in which aged Michael Caine lays waste to teenage thugs on his estate, which plays like I would imagine the wet dream of a Daily Mail reader might. There is also a flip side in Attack The Block (2011), which, despite initially introducing the hoodie characters as spineless muggers, eventually turns them into something more likeable, even heroic.
Which brings us to Citadel, the latest film to feature hooded nasties – this time on a condemned council estate on the outskirts of Glasgow. Aneurin Barnard (Elfie Hopkins) stars as a man haunted by the death of his pregnant wife, who is murdered by the aforementioned hoodies as he is stuck in a lift whilst they are trying to move out of their tower block (the Citadel of the title) which is due to be knocked down. His daughter somehow manages to survive the attack and he is left alone, caring for a baby and developing paranoia and agoraphobia. At his wife’s funeral a very abrupt and amusingly foul-mouthed priest (played by veteran actor James Cosmo), warns Aneurin to ‘get the fuck out’ before ‘they’ come for his daughter as well. It transpires that the priest is all too aware of the feral kids which inhabit the estate and is keen to deal with the matter himself.
Citadel has been garnering a great deal of praise on the festival circuit, and in some ways it is easy to see why. Aneurin and Cosmo are both good in their roles, and the film’s setting makes for some incredibly bleak and unsettling atmosphere, with the run-down tower blocks and rain-lashed Scottish slums appearing to be nearly devoid of human life, which makes the appearance of the villainous children even more disturbing.
So with atmosphere you can cut with a (concealed) knife, good performances and an interesting affliction for the main character to overcome, you would think we would be onto a winner here. Unfortunately this is a bit of a wasted opportunity, as there are numerous plot points which rather defy logic, and an attempt at a love interest for Aneurin – played by Wunmi Mosaku as a liberal social worker who claims that the kids on the estate just need some love and attention (and learns that this is not the case) – seems flat and unrealistic. Another character, a young blind boy who is in the care of Cosmo’s priest, seems to add an interesting dynamic to the final confrontation in the Citadel itself, but this too gets confused and messy towards the end, and the theme of agoraphobia feels glossed over in favour of a standard action climax. The film also seems unsure of what the ‘monsters’ actually are, and what their motives seem to be, despite a final reel revelation that I didn’t see coming.
In summary, I get the feeling that the film was trying to go for something a little more metaphorical than previous examples of hoodie horror, but the confused and confusing nature of the plot sinks this rather, and any kind of interesting political comment has a nail hammered into its coffin with the fate of the liberal-leaning character. But if you like British films with an atmosphere of dread and some decent performances, you might get some enjoyment out of Citadel.