 HIPPOPOTAMUS (2018) Dir. Edward Palmer, 77 mins As you can imagine, I spend a lot of time scrolling through streaming services seeking out movies to review, and when this one popped up on Amazon Prime I had an immediate sense of deja vu. It took a minute or two to figure out why, but this was a movie that I'd seen a couple of years prior at the Paracinema Film Festival here in my home town of Derby (and indeed my home venue of QUAD). I don't know quite why I didn't review it at the time – I'd packed in a lot of films over those few days, and it's possible I was just feeling a bit overloaded to review that much. But I figured this would give me a second chance to check this one and give it the spotlight I maybe should have previously. Hippopotamus as a film is pretty small in scale, following kidnapper Tom and his captor, Ruby. She wakes up in a locked room, chained and completely discombobulated with both legs broken to negate any chance of escape. Tom tells her the same thing many, many times – you can only leave here once you've fallen in love with me. So far it's not a revelatory concept, although the performances are decent enough to carry this one in general, and the short runtime does help things along to some extent. Of course you then have to throw in the fact that she has forgotten everything due to retrograde amnesia – and you will just have to stretch to accept that old filmic device if you're going to get anything out of this one – and although it is pivotal to the plot here as a device it does always leave me feeling bit incredulous. I felt like I really wanted to like this movie – while I have seen a lot of these 'kidnapper vs kidnapee' cat and mouse sort of films, if someone does have a fresh spin I can certainly be talked into enjoying something. This one is obviously low-budget, but not in a way that feels in your face – everything looks decent, while keeping the cast and effects to a minimum. But it does feel like even at 77 minutes the plot is a bit slight to carry its runtime, and as more and more is revealed it does feel as though things get harder to believe. The closing part of the scene are a long sort of flashback and as a conclusion feels really unsatisfactory, and dare I say illogical, jolting my suspension of disbelief many times. Hippopotamus is basically OK if a bit slow for an hour, and then really seems to fall apart in its last quarter of an hour. It does feel as though a potentially interesting concept does get a bit flushed away, which is a shame because I think this movie could have ranked higher if we could have taken it home that bit better. It's maybe angling to be something a little like Pet, which I slightly preferred, but doesn't land it quite as well. RATING: 4.5/10. I feel like the rating for this one has gone down and down the more I've thought about it, although I didn't want to be too hard on it because there were certainly ideas and indeed performances here I liked. However I'm not quite so willing to forgive it for a clumsy, heavy-handed ending that really detracted from what had happened rather than adding to it. If you're particularly into movies with this kind of set-up, you might still get something from it, but there are better examples out there. I doubt this one will cramp your mood severely, but it's hard to see it living too long in the memory either – ironically, given what the movie is about. As I mentioned previously, you can watch this one free with your Amazon Prime subscription if you wanted to go and check it out for yourself. Overall this one comes out a little below average at 4.5/10. Today on The Ginger Nuts of Horror WebsiteFOR RYE, AN INTERVIEW WITH GAVIN GARDINER The Heart and Soul of Horror Websites |
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