Five-Legged Iguana

¡Qué horror! 2013

Candidate # 5

CITADEL

(March 2012)

I rather enjoyed Ciarán Foy’s 2006 short film, The Faeries of Blackheath Woods, and now, Foy has made the leap to feature films with Citadel, utilizing real-life personal experience as the foundation for his script.

Tommy Cowley (Elfie Hopkins’ Aneurin Barnard) is crippled by agoraphobia after a tragic encounter with some hoodie-wearing delinquents, who now seem intent on threatening him and his baby daughter.

Shot in 23 days, Citadel is set against the bleak backdrop of decrepit council estates and condemned tower blocks, a foreboding landscape of blasted concrete and shattered glass, haunted by a savage and feral menace that seems to recall shades of Cronenberg’s The Brood and the shambling hordes of horror movie monster du jour, the zombie.

Weighted down by his fear (informed by Foy’s own unprovoked beating at the age of 18 by a gang of hoodies, and his subsequent development of agoraphobia), Tommy must learn to deal with his terror in order to protect his baby and get off the council estate alive.

Parting shot: It’s interesting to note that there is both a Grant Morrison (Taxi Driver/Wrangler and Featured Extra: Taxi Driver) and a Peter O’Toole (Minibus Driver) listed in the end credits crawl.

Sadly, I don’t think either is the Grant Morrison or the Peter O’Toole that we’re familiar with.

(Citadel OS courtesy of impawards.com.)