Angel (Rosie Day), a young deaf and mute girl in the Balkans, sees her mother executed in front of her before being whisked away to The Seasoning House, a horrifying place where children are bought, sold and rented. Gradually, she learns how to navigate the crawl spaces between the vents, and learns the inner workings of the house as she plans for her escape.
I like a good thriller, and this one is definitely gripping. A couple of very brutal rape scenes, a lot of blood, and a guy vomiting over the corpse of a dead prostitute all feature in this 89-minute horror extravaganza. I’m not at all squeamish, but I did think it was a bit of a shame just how much gore was in this movie. I felt like it would have benefited from being a bit more subtle: the storyline was actually pretty good, and it could easily have been a comment on human despair in the style of A Hijacking. Instead, it was just a bit too gratuitously bloodthirsty.
Having said that, Rosie Day shines as an excellent actress, and all of the characters are believable, if a bit over-exaggerated at times. Not a bad film by any means, and certainly a good antidote to all the summer romcoms.
The Seasoning House is out on DVD and Blu-Ray from the 12th of August 2013.