Review by Tristan Bishop
Ryuhei Kitamura is a talented chap. His breakthrough film Versus rocked international audiences back in 2000, blending Yakuza, zombies and breakneck action sequences, and a couple of years later he made Azumi, a wonderfully entertaining ‘female ninja’ story with quirky characters and breathtaking sword fighting. Unfortunately, when handed Godzilla : Final Wars, intended to be the last big blow-out for Toho’s kaiju star, he mishandled the material and long time fans of the Big G hated the way he sidelined the monsters in favour of emo-haired kung fu fighting. Not long after he made the transition to Hollywood with The Midnight Meat Train, a semi-successful Clive Barker adaptation (with Vinnie Jones!) which won him few new fans but nonetheless remains popular with genre hounds. After a brief return to Japan for the sci-fi anime Baton, he is back in America for No-One Lives, which may possibly be his most demented film yet.
Because of the nature of No-One Lives – it’s a fast-moving and twist-laden little film – it would feel unfair to ruin what it has to offer by describing the plot beyond the first ten minutes. Suffice to say we start the film in the company of a family of criminals who are robbing a mansion. The owners of the mansion come home unexpectedly in the middle of the robbery and Flynn, the hot-headed loose cannon of the group, bloodily guns them down, angering the rest of his gang. We are then introduced to the unnamed ‘driver’ and his girlfriend, who we learn are fleeing to another town, possibly because of the ‘other woman’ they are discussing. When they stop to eat at a roadside steak house they encounter the criminal family, and Flynn attempts to make up for his earlier error by plotting to kidnap and rob them.
At this point I was expecting something along the lines of Last House On The Left – for the couple to be brutalised by the gang until they eventually take their revenge – but No-one Lives is not your normal horror thriller, and soon it starts to twist and turn with lightning speed. In fact it soon becomes utterly ridiculous, but is so packed with outrageous gore gags and moves at such a pace that you’ll probably be having far too much fun to care.
Kitamura’s usual stylistic excess has been toned down a little here, and although the action is suitable outré, the filming style instead is fairly classic, with occasional nods to Hitchcock and Silence Of The Lambs, and the performances are generally OK, with special mention going to Adelaide Clemens (recently seen in The Great Gatsby and the execrable Silent Hill: Revelations) as Emma, an interesting character with murky intentions. Also, don’t let the fact that this a ‘WWE’ picture fool you – there is a wrestler, George Murdoch, in the cast but that’s where the connection ends, and in fact Murdoch is perfectly cast in a small but fairly important (at least to the film’s most entertaining scene) role. Luke Evans plays Driver, and the Welsh actor seems to be going stratospheric at the moment, with recent roles as Zeus in (the underrated) Immortals, The Raven and Fast and Furious 6, as well as upcoming roles as Bard in The Hobbit’s forthcoming sequels and also the reboots of Dracula and The Crow. Here he gets to take centre stage and steal the show, and I can only imagine how much fun he must have been having.
There are downsides here – first time writer David Cohen’s script is occasionally confused, and suffers from some unnatural sounding dialogue at times, and there are one or two moments that appear to be leading somewhere but are afterwards forgotten about, but that could be the result of the editing process (although the film is just over 80 minutes long as it is). But if you are willing to accept that, then strap yourself in for a fast, gory, funny ride.
No One Lives has its UK premiere at Film4 FrightFest, before hitting UK cinemas on 6th September, from Anchor Bay.