by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: $13.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Jamie Costa, Emalia
Intro:
… a fun, if forgettable, creature feature with suspenseful moments and a couple of nice, dark twists to keep audiences engaged.
Single shot movies, ie. films that are or appear to be one continuous take, are an interesting proposition. When they work, they really give the viewer a sense of tense immediacy. 1917 or Birdman are both great examples, featuring a kinetic style that really keeps you in the moment. Other times, they can feel gimmicky, a conceit rather than a necessary stylistic choice. Scurry, the latest film from Aussie director Luke Sparke (Occupation: Rainfall, Bring Him to Me), has a foot in both camps, and is a decent monster romp that sometimes gets lost in the tunnels.
Scurry is the story of an extremely unlucky bloke (Jamie Costa), who on a day when everything seems to be going crazy, ends up injured at the bottom of a sinkhole with no one nearby to help him. He can’t get through to anyone on his phone, and judging from the screams and explosions above, rescue is extremely unlikely. So, ol’ mate girds his loins and starts crawling through the tunnels. The problem? He’s not alone. A similarly unlucky woman (Emalia) shares the underground space… along with a bunch of narky, burrowing creatures that appear to take a dim view of human interlopers.
Director Luke Sparke is well known for producing unpretentious, engaging, perhaps overly familiar quasi-blockbusters on a budget. His Occupation films are lots of fun, despite a lot of rough edges, and Scurry falls into a similar basket. Shot in Queensland doubling as somewhere in America, Scurry is exactly the kind of high concept thriller you’d expect from the bloke. It doesn’t always work, mind you. The fact that so much of the film is spent in dark tunnels, in various levels of close-up, means the single shot conceit doesn’t really add anything. Plus, some of the stilted acting in the second half, and baffling decisions made by the characters, detracts from the tension. The monsters are pretty fun, however, and while the CGI is a little ropey, the close-ups are suitably creepy.
Ultimately Scurry is a fun, if forgettable, creature feature with suspenseful moments and a couple of nice, dark twists to keep audiences engaged. The single shot technique doesn’t add a lot, but it’s a perfectly serviceable vehicle for some oversized soil-dwellers to menace a couple of ill-fated humans.
