CHERRY TREE LANE is the latest in a line of “aren’t hooded chavs evil” flicks that also includes EDEN LAKE and HARRY BROWN. Williams really impressed with his low-fi social realism picture LONDON TO BRIGHTON, but in my opinion, missed the mark with his second film, the woefully uneven horror/comedy THE COTTAGE. CHERRY TREE LANE finds him back on form: it’s never as great as his debut but it packs a mean punch.
A middle class couple settle in at home for a quite night. Dinner is served and the TV is on. When the wife gets up to answer the door she gets a lot more than she bargained for when three youths enter the family home and immediately rough both her and her husband up. The three hooded teens are there not by chance and their home invasion isn’t a robbery. They plan to wait for the couple’s teenage son to return home because they have a score to settle…
There are many that will brand CHERRY TREE LANE another reactionary film: the same people in fact that had a problem with James Watkins’s EDEN LAKE. If, like me, you enjoyed EDEN LAKE, I’d say give this a go, it’s an effective thriller that keeps much of its nastiness implied and off-screen, though is no less tense for it. Well worth watching.
DVD was released last Monday (bought my copy in HMV) – it’s released by Metrodome and there seems to be a reasonable amount of special features on the disc. There is no Blu-ray.
