‘Cupid’ Review
Stars: Georgina Jane, Michael Owusu, Abi Casson Thompson, Ali Barouti, Bao Tieu, Sarah T. Cohen, Georgie Banks, Kelly Jubilee, Jake Watkins, Adrian Bouchet | Written and Directed by Scott Jeffrey
Opening with brilliant, narrated, animation that re-tells that tale of cupid and thus setting up the films evil villain, Cupid is the latest film from ow-budget genre production company Proportion Productions – a company whose output we here at Nerdly have been big fans of over the years. Yes their budgets may be small but their ideas are big; and when the two meet you get some fantastic DTV horror fare.
Like a lot of Proportion Productions films, Cupid keeps things very much “in the family”, with Scott Jeffrey – writer of the companies first film Fox Trap, co-writer of the remake of video nasty Unhinged, half fo the team that penned The Mummy Reborn and producer of a TON of the comapnies other films – goes behind the camera once again for Cupid, his third film in the directors chair for Proportion Productions (we previously reviewed his second directorial effort, The Final Scream, back in October) – a film that posits the titular character is less of a messenger of love and more a vengeful spirit of revenge!
Cupid tells the story of Faye, a schoolgirl with a crush on her teacher who is horrendously embarrassed by the mean girls at school, led by Elise (Sarah T. Cohen), after they prank her into believing the teacher she has a crush on feels the same way… In a Carrie-like spate of vengeance, Faye summons the evil cupid to take revenge on all those students who wronged her, stopping at nothing until all are punished. Trapped in school detention the students must figure out a way to stop cupid and undo the spell before their hearts get broken, literally.
And it’s not just broken hearts, oh no, this cupid does a hell of a lot more. Of course he shoots poisonous arrows but this killer cupid also carves out peoples flesh with heart-shaped cookie cutters, throws Valentine’s Day cards like ninjas throw shuriken and uses that staple of the day, a bouquet of roses, to choke someone to death… All in a [valentines] day of work for this particularly evil cupid.
Speaking of the titular Cupid, he looks NOTHING like the cherubic sweetheart we’ve come to expect, instead looking like a gargoyle-esque half man, half skeleton demon; and he’s not the ugliest person in this film and I don’t mean ugly as in appearance! Nope, that honour would fall to Sarah T. Cohen’s Elise, the high school bitch whose behaviour is so ugly, so detestable that you can’t help but root for cupid to slice and dice her into a million pieces. Despite her characters frankly awful behaviour it’s Cohen who is the standout performer here – she steals each and every scene she’s in. Even if the audience totally hates her character!
Despite some issues with setting a film that’s obviously shot in the UK, with UK performers, in a US high school – complete with some dodgy American accents from the cast – Cupid is yet another superb slice of low-budget horror from Scott Jeffrey and Proportion Productions – showing real progression in all areas of production; with everyone seemingly having stepped up their game with this one, making me all the more excited to see the next effort from this British neo-Hammer studio.
Cupid is out now on DVD and Digital in the US from Uncork’d Entertainment.
