The Owners is an entertaining slice of horror that occasionally shines in the hands of McCoy and Tushingham.
I have said it once, and I’ll repeat it: we don’t see enough of Sylvester McCoy on TV or in film. This makes Julius Berg’s new movie The Owners all the more enticing, especially when McCoy is joined by the fantastic Rita Tushingham (A Taste of Honey) and Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) in a creepy home invasion horror based on the French graphic novel Une Nuit de Pleine Lune.
Opening with a trio of young men sitting in a smoke-filled car, scoping out a house deep in the English countryside, The Owners takes no time in introducing us to the childlike Terry (Ellis), the opportunistic Nathan (Kenny), and the dangerous and volatile Gaz (Curran). Their mission is simple: the break-in and robbery of the home of Dr Huggin (McCoy) and his wife (Tushingham). The reason is a hidden safe containing cash spotted by Terry’s mum, whom the Huggins employed as a cleaner. But, as the boys wait, Mary (Williams), Nathan’s girlfriend, unexpectedly arrives, becoming an unwitting accomplice. However, what starts as a simple burglary soon spirals out of control as the group discover the only way into the safe is a code the elderly couple keeps hidden.
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Director Julius Berg does a sterling job of slowly building tension and fear over the film’s fifty-minute opening, employing a raft of tried-and-tested camera techniques to heighten the sense of claustrophobia. However, The Owners never quite builds on these strengths while discarding the underlying themes of class, privilege, and generational divide in a bog-standard horror finale. However, despite its weaknesses, The Owners is an entertaining slice of horror that occasionally shines in the hands of McCoy and Tushingham. At the same time, its young cast keeps the pace quick and energetic despite the lacklustre final act. The result is a blood-soaked, quirky home-invasion horror that never takes itself too seriously but lacks bite.
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