Cherry Tree Lane

Filmmakers love to exploit people's worst fears. Think about all the films made over the years about plane disasters, natural disasters, zombie outbreaks, airborne pathogens, serial killers, and any and everything else released in theaters or on DVD weekly. For some reason, we're all drawn to seeing what might happen in any of these situations and experience them from the outside looking in. "Cherry Tree Lane" gives us a "glass house" view of what many people would consider one of the most frightening horrors they could experience: the home invasion. An ordinary middle-class couple named Christine (Rachel Blake) and Mike (Tom Butcher) arrive at home and settle in for an evening together. Their son, Sebastian (Tom Kane), hasn't arrived yet. You can tell the two have issues between them through awkward talk at the dinner table. The evening takes a turn for the worse when Christine answers a knock at the door and returns to the dining area held captive by a thug with a knife to her throat. The couple soon find themselves bound, gagged, and beaten as their captors await their son's arrival. It seems Sebastian is running with a rough crowd and turned in one of the young delinquent's brothers. "Cherry Tree Lane" is a slow-burning and tense movie that does its best to explore every aspect of a home invasion. However, instead of showing you everything, it leaves much to your imagination. It's not worse than seeing horrific actions on screen, but creates a more stressful viewing experience. Director / writer Paul Andrew Williams definitely knows how to pace a good suspense yarn. This has been referred to as a real-time thriller by some people. Let's just say a lot can happen in 77-minutes. "Cherry Tree Lane" shows audiences that it doesn't take too much time for lives to be destroyed and bad decisions to change the course of one's future forever. Williams does a great job showing how messed up these thugs are throughout the film. One calls their parents and argues with them about a TV show they want recorded. Another one invites their girlfriend over to the scene of the crime to hang out. She brings her friend and a young boy with her. To them, this is just business as usual. It reminded me of how Alex and his droogs acted after a night of ultra-violence in "A Clockwork Orange." Another way of looking at "Cherry Tree Lane" is as a cautionary tale. You never know how your actions are going to affect others. Sebastian's actions caused his parents to come to harm. He not only set himself up to be oppressed, but got others involved as well. Although the movie is Unrated, it features violence, partial nudity, and a whole lot of bad language. This is definitely not for the squeamish. It's also not something you probably want your teenager or young children watching. "Cherry Tree Lane" only comes in a regular format DVD edition. There are no special features included in the packaging. It would've been nice to see a "Making of" featurette and get a little background on the project from director / writer Paul Andrew Williams. At first, I felt "Cherry Tree Lane" was a bit slow-moving for my taste. After reflecting on it, I realized that it's actually a well-paced little film that explores an invasion of our privacy and humanity without being too exploitative. Don't get me wrong. It's disturbing and unnerving, but never steps over the line into "torture-*" territory where a lot of movies like this tend to go.

Out of all the horror/thriller/realistic films that I have seen I have never ever thought that there would be a movie that would bring me to skip most scenes and still know what will be happening within the film. This movie is about the most out of control films that I have ever viewed. The use of language and verbal abuse was out of control and none of which suited the characters portrayed or maybe it was because the atmosphere was n't created. The movie dragged on and I even had to watch some scenes again to actually analyze some of the actors expressions. The camera angles were of many close-ups of the actors when they had no emotions showing at all. The plot was simple and realistic. The talk between the couple was long and boring and something should've happened within those minutes that should've brought my attention, but nothing. The gang was useless and when the girls came in with the little boy, it was a big WTF moment. How most of the film stayed within the living room bored me to death. I recommend NOT watching this film for anyone. Complete waste of my time.

doesn't resolve the ending. i still feel upset, which means acting was good but story line was lacking. finallity is important in a violent storyline like this. will leave you wondering. the actors portrayed the characters properly, even though it wasn't written the best way. this is a good reason why to get a bar across the door, like unbreakable made it look, (bruce willis, m. night shayalaman), but a bunch of chutney blokes bursting in isn't a way to make a plot either. if you want to get angry and be upset at the lenght yougsters are willing to go to so they feel like adults, and possibly their fathers) then this is the movie for you. otherwise stay clear, i wanna still punch them in the face.

You can see beyond my vote. I was never a big fan of invasion and/or torture movies. Having said that, this really is done pretty good. One major thing though: After Funny Games this particular "genre" of movies have actually become obsolete in my opinion. You can say what you want about Haneke's effort (I didn't really like Funny Games, but that was the point!), but it made any other movie that tried to do anything in that direction look really ridiculous. It tries really hard to do good, but if you have seen Funny Games you might feel the same way as me and think that you would have never have to watch something like that again. It's not the actors, they're trying and it tries to stay as grounded as much as it is possible. Of course you might not feel that way, than this movie will be a nice watch for you. But again, that is something that only you can answer for yourself.

Do not listen to Mr Smoove! While it has its faults, this movie is nowhere near how he describes it. @Mr Smoove - you were either watching a different movie or you are, well, I'll not be impolite... My partner and I found it an excellent, gritty film filled with utterly gnawing tension and disturbing to the core. It would be interesting to know which movies Mr Smoove thinks are good, because he appears to rate this lower than, say, the Spice Girls Movie, or Johnny English, or anything vomited forth by Michael Winner - and that intrigues me greatly... Do not listen to Mr Smoove! While it has its faults, this movie is nowhere near how he describes it. @Mr Smoove - you were either watching a different movie or you are, well, I'll not be impolite... My partner and I found it an excellent, gritty film filled with utterly gnawing tension and disturbing to the core. It would be interesting to know which movies Mr Smoove thinks are good, because he appears to rate this lower than, say, the Spice Girls Movie, or Johnny English, or anything vomited forth by Michael Winner - and that intrigues me greatly...

This is a nothing film. Nothing original, no substance, no real flow to it, boring, predictable. I find it hard to believe that this came from the same director who made the brilliant 'London to Brighton', maybe he should have retired after that. Don't watch this movie. I'll save you seventy minutes. -Couple gets attacked. - Mum gets raped. - Thugs wait on son they want to kill to come home. - Son comes home. - Dad saves day with candle stick. - The end. I kept watching in the hope that the end would be OK, it wasn't. Seriously do not watch this movie.

Shot like a BBC drama set in the middle-class suburbs, a very violent and new like feel to film making, with that very British look on films. If you are sqeemish or don't like films like Antichrist then you wont really like this, with its gorish portrayal on kidnap and slaying. At the premiere, some people were shocked by its goriness and violence mixed with very crude language, with very gauging gut wrenching, to kill or be killed. Worth seeing for those gory documentary style film lovers. well worth a 7 out of 10 in my books, as it is a little slow to start and has some overworked areas, not bad for 2 weeks shooting and 3 months preparation

Cherry Tree Lane is a 70 minute Funny Games/Eden lake-esque 'horror' that sees a bunch of teens terrorising a not-very-happily married couple in North London. Despite the ridiculously short running time, Cherry Tree Lane is LONG. Too long. I found myself drifting in and out of consciousness listening to the pointless conversations that this film includes. Moments include the leader, shall we say, eyeing up 42-year old Christine, telling her to stand up "to see how fit she is" whilst her husband, gagged on the floor, is yelled at "don't look round at me, blud!" So basically, it's a group of chavs armed with knives, stealing credit cards and biscuits. They aren't JUST after money though, they want the couples son who's apparently not been able to keep his mouth shut about someone cousin...or something along those lines. There were some nice slow motion shots, but other than that, it's a very simple film with the only location being the house, well, the living room. There were a handful of tense moments that had me remotely wondering what was going to happen, however, it's all rather predictable. I didn't REALLY care what was going to happen at the end, although, I did hope the couple would execute some revenge if they were to escape. Overall, it's not the worst film in the world, but it's definitely not the best of it's type; Eden Lake and Funny Games are a lot better..and the teenagers seem too stupid in Cherry Tree Lane to carry out anything too horrific.

This is a typical home invasion type movie but the screenplay stuff was not so strong enough to hold the story. The whole story happens inside a house. So the main revenge reference was just missing. Acting was just OK. The whole film seems like one scene just developed in a not so interesting manner. I would say last house on the left and the strangers were good compared to this. Just don't watch this with some expectations . I would give 4 on 10

Was not impressed with this film , the majority of the acting was poor although Ashley Chin who plays 'Asad' in this film was very good and played a very convincing character and he should receive a great deal of credit for this film, as he was the only person in the film that didn't look like a 'first timer'. The film had a slight impact on me and has a good story line for the majority of the film which did keep me on edge and eager to find out what is next, but then ends bluntly which made me feel like I'd wasted my time watching it as there's no summary to the story line and in my opinion is a complete fail. I will not be recommending this film to my friends but that does not mean to say that other people won't enjoy the film, but I stand firm on saying it's just not my cup of tea!