20131203: Horror Review--The Expelled

The Expelled (F, original title)

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. British live action feature length film, 2010, rated R, 78 minutes, horror.
2. IMDB: 4.7/10.0 from 2,656 audience ratings.  Estimated budget: 150,000 UK pounds.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet...' and 51% wanted to see it from 248 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.9/5.0 from 30,736 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Johannes Roberts.
6. Starring: David Schofield as Robert Anderson, Eliza Bennett as Kate Anderson, Ruth Gemmell as Sarah Balham, Finlay Robertson as James, Roxanne McKee as Nicky, Juliet Aubrey as Helen Anderson.


2. Setup and Plot
1. At a public school (Wittering College in the UK) Robert Anderson, a tough teacher, is rather direct about how horrible a student's work is.  The student slugs the teacher in the nose, drawing a lot of blood. Instead of standing up for him, the school asks him to go on leave until the student graduates.  The student's parents were threatening to sue the teacher for belittling remarks, claiming that more than justified physical assault and battery.


2. Robert does indeed come back.  He falls behind in posting marks, and other teachers complain about too much noise and too much cursing emanating from his class.  His boss Sarah warns him about rumours concerning his bringing alcohol to school.  The unions protect him somewhat.  Sarah also warns him about sending e-mails. The one he wrote was merely a statement of publicly available crime statistics.  .He finally gets provoked enough that he assigns a student detention. It was his own daughter Kate, and he's in a separated state.  Perhaps this was not the best idea. Perhaps worst of all, it's night and someone wants to spread some fear.  Robert makes a large error by being provoked by Kate during detention, and he slaps her.  She takes off.


3. Somebody attacks and kills one of the security guards.  Kate discovers that the telephones are down when she tries to call for a ride.  Robert gets a milkshake thrown at him from someone outside while he's inside.  They leave the message 'Ur dead' on the wall outside.  Robert advises the librarian to leave, but she ignores him.  The intruder starts giving her some uncertainty.  Kate hangs out in the toilet, and her boy friend catches up with her.


4. Sarah tells Robert to go home after Kate tells her that Robert hit her.  Everything else wrong is just ignored, such as Kate's boyfriend being in the girls' toilet with Kate.  James meets Sarah and both of them agree on ignoring Robert.  Nicky gets attacked in the women's change area by two faceless (hooded) attackers.  Robert's at his car when he sees the security guard's abandoned flashlight with blood on it.  Sarah instructs James not to let Robert comes back in.  Nice.  Sarah calls Helen and asks her to come get Kate.  Immediately thereafter Sarah hears breaking glass and goes to investigate.  The hooded intruders get close to her and she runs, but cannot hide.  They kill her.  That was certainly an expected outcome. Robert gets in, finds Sarah dead, then calls the police.  They studiously lecture him and ignore anything he has to say.


5. Kate decides not to wait for her mother.  She goes to Jake's car, then sees the hooded figure.  Jake's listening to rap, and does not notice her.  She runs; he eventually goes inside the school to find her.  A male teacher in his prime finds Kate, and tries to get some truth out of her.  Then he goes looking for the miscreants.  Poor guy; he realises they have flanked him, and he is going to get at best a big load of pain.  Jake's whimpering leads him to one place where he is attacked and killed.


6. Robert goes to James and eventually convinces him that Sarah is dead.  James keeps calling his security mate Brian, but he was the first one murdered by the rampaging teens.  When they find what's left of Nicky, James freaks out; Robert barely keeps James calm.  They find one of the murderers in the art room; James runs and locks himself in nearby.  This leaves Robert in with the bad guys.  The cops finally arrive, but do not believe that students can be all that menacing.  This puts them at a terrible disadvantage.


7. Who comes out of this alive?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Teen bullies murder teachers and students alike.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 A bit dim, with the wretched colour from flourescent lighting.  That's probably accurate, though.  The occasional blurriness and jerky motion do not help.


2. Sound: 10/10 Quite effective.


3. Acting: 5/10 Robert Anderson and Ruth Gemmell were fairly convincing.  Eliza Bennett, Finlay Robertson, and Juliet Aubrey I could have done without.


4. Screenplay: 10/10 Brillant.  Suspenseful to the end, with no supernatural elements.  We never actually see the faces of the mass murderers, for instance.