Macabre…ish Horror Review: Salvage
Salvage, 2010/ 1 hr 20 min
A paper boy is killed by an unseen assailant in the woods after getting spooked while snooping on a couple, fighting.
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A man dropping off his daughter, Jodie (Linzey Cocker) at her mother, Beth’s (Neve McIntosh) house, hears about a shipping container that’s washed up on the beach.
The mother/daughter Christmas reunion is a disaster and quickly devolves into chaos when Beth finds her mom with a random man named Kieran (Shaun Dooley).
After Beth tries to get Jodie to talk to her at the neighbor’s house, heavily armed men arrive and shoot another neighbor who’s armed with a knife.
Soon the soldiers are checking all the houses and helicopters are over head. The rules for the residents suddenly change. They are no longer allowed outside their houses. Then the phones are out of commission.
On the news is the shipping container that washed up on the beach but now it’s open and empty. The journalist explains there are 3 bodies on the beach. Then the electricity goes out. Suddenly, Beth hears something upstairs, upon inspection, she and Kieran, first see a sledgehammer on the landing and the hatch to her attic is open. When Kieran goes to check, a neighbor comes around a corner and gets stabbed in the neck for his trouble.
Afterward, Kieran starts acting different and Beth tries to find out why that guy was in her house and how he got in. After investigating the attic, she finds her attic wall breached and the other unit’s hatch open. The neighbor’s unit is chaotic, bloody and the wife’s remains on the floor.
Another neighbor beats on the door for help but she’s covered in blood. Beth is freaked out and needs to get to her daughter who is across the street. And Kieran is very worried his wife will find out where he is.
They are starting to see bodies pile up outside and many of them are soldiers. But they still don’t know what is happening. They rescue a soldier and he warns them to lock the windows and barricade the doors. Then he explains what is happening. Now they only need to survive 6 nights, then his unit will arrive.
But things change quickly and the secret the military is trying to keep, they will do anything to keep it quiet. Including killing everyone still alive in the area. Beth is told to get herself and her daughter out. Then someone or something comes crashing into the room and the soldier doesn’t make it out.
And Beth flees back to her house through the attic, Kieran is attacked behind her and she barely makes it down the stairs before she’s met with a gun butt to her face. Then she wakes up outside, bloody, her hands zip tied around a light pole. They soldiers are using her as bait.
This British mystery horror, directed by Lawrence Gough, is pretty fast paced and gets progressively more bloody and gory but still manages not to be a gore fest. There’s not a lot of monster visuals but what there is, is pretty grotesque. There is an adult scene and nudity.