Battle of the Blockbusters: The Hide vs Big Bad Wolves

Spotted the severed foot yet?

We're all likely aware of the concept of a 'bottle episode', even if you've never heard of that particular term before. It's when, in a TV show, the characters and sets are whittled down to their absolute minimum and the drama all takes place in this kind of closed ecosystem for an episode. We've seen it in Breaking Bad where Walt and Jessie chased a fly around the lab for a whole day; Community even riffed on it marvellously back in Season 2 when Annie lost her pen and I'll be, those are the two examples used in the Wikipedia article about this very phenomenon. Freaky. It's used because it works well as a chance for writers to build on character relations without having to worry about all the extra guff that you usually have to shove into an episode as filler.

Like getting round to giving Walt Jr. any meal that isn't breakfast.

Bottle episodes aren't limited to TV though, and a restricted set and cast are a go-to for anyone trying to make a movie on a budget. Our two films for today take a claustrophobic single location and use it to their advantage: First up is The Hide, a darkly comic and twisted British thriller about two men and a murder in a bird hide, and second is Big Bad Wolves, a darkly comic and twisted Israeli thriller about three men and a murder in a basement.

Wasn't Tom Selleck in that one?

For those of you who've just joined us, Battle of the Blockbusters is a three-round one-on-one battle to the death between two films, the loser of which will be finished off in the most grisly way possible. I've got a holiday to pack for and the clean-up crew are itching to get a-mopping, so let's get this show on the road.

Round 1 - Twistedness

For whatever reason, the particular sub-genre of low budget tense thriller is a breeding ground for some of the most vile concepts imaginable in cinema; whether you consider that a positive or negative is entirely down to how many notes you took while watching Saw. You can almost guarantee that the smaller the space, the more nightmarishly disgusting the atrocities being committed are going to be. We'll include Buried in this as that movie is a crime in it's own right.

In hindsight, after seeing Green Lantern, we probably should have left Ryan Reynolds in there.

Our two contenders are no different, and boy do we have some nasty goings on happening here. Naturally I don't want to spoil much so I'll probably sound a little cryptic talking about this stuff, but I'm trying my best.

The Hide is the more down-played of the two films, with our two characters spending the majority of the run time being suspicious of each other, looking at birds and taking turns sitting down. It may sound boring, but Alex MacQueen (Neil's gay dad from The Inbetweeners) and Phil Campbell do admirable jobs creating a believable relationship between their characters while keeping the tension palpable and our interests thoroughly piqued.

Always remember to ask for consent before piquing someone's interest.

After an hour of character development and a short lesson in ornithology, the sudden infusion of nastiness is a pretty big shock to the system to say the least, leading to much "Awww, god, no!" moments and a dash of vomiting. Again, I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say in the most obscure way I could think of that it involves a boat, carbon monoxide and some chicken paste sandwiches.

Nothing could possibly be more disgusting than chicken paste sandwiches.

Compared to the balls-to-the-wall gruesomeness of Big Bad Wolves, The Hide is quite understated, and I like that. It doesn't do much but it's confident in knowing it doesn't have to, thanks to the brilliantly crafted atmosphere and constant feeling of unease. That said, the competition is stiff, and being complacent ain't going to win on its own.

I don't usually use trigger warnings on this blog but for the sake of this next bit...yeah. Yeesh. There's no easy way to say this: raping and beheading of 10 year old girls ahoy.

"Thar she blows!"

Please don't take me for being tastless, it's just I could either joke about it or make this part of the post horrifically depressing, so I'm running with it. To be honest this isn't all that original a conceit for thrillers, having likely been done and re-done hundreds of times (that is definitely not meant to be a pun), but the addition of sedative-laced birthday cakes and some marvellously disquieting cinematography breaths some fresh air into what could have otherwise been a rather by-the-numbers flick. The atmosphere and very slow unravelling of the mystery also manage to revitalise those worryingly well-trodden themes of child-rape and mutilation and...I don't really know how to feel about that. I'm a terrible person for even mentioning it.

At least I'm not as bad as her; the little shit blew those candles out right into his face!

That coupled with the aforementioned beheadings and a veritable array of other lovely gruesome activities over 110 minutes, including but not limited to blowtorches to the chest, toenails being ripped out and rusty saws being put where rusty saws shouldn't be, means that I think I have to give this round to Big Bad Wolves just for going all out and stapling every nightmarish thing they could think of together and then filming it. 

Big Bad Wolves takes round one but should definitely not feel proud about it.

The Hide: 0

Big Bad Wolves: 1

Round 2 - Setting

When it comes down to a small cast in an even smaller space, it's important to try and make a character out of the very place your unfortunate heroes have found themselves in. For one, it can make for some of the best atmospheres in cinema, and for another, a character that's actually made of wood doesn't have any lines; score for the writers!

"I just wrote 'Things blow up and Iron Man says witty stuff' for a hundred pages. Screen-writing is eaaaasy." 

The hide in...that film we've been discussing that's about a hide...is quite possibly the best realised character in the whole movie. It's damp, dingy, unassuming yet eerily imposing and seemingly safe but likely to collapse in on itself at any moment. Set on the backdrop of the Suffolk moors (if you don't already know of the colourful history of English moors, sweet dreams), it is utterly unique and immediately conveys this prevailing sense of dread and being cornered with nowhere left to...well...hide.

Holiday weekends to the sunny Suffolk moors start at £50 a night.

What's interesting is that despite having such a strong presence, the hide is pretty much ignored, given no background or extended history; it simply exists in it's own mysterious world and will continue to once we are gone. It's like, by being there, we're intruding on it's life and it is just waiting patiently for these hikers to finish up and leave so it can get on with whatever it was doing before hand.

While the two protagonists hole up inside from the rain, the hide creaks and strains as it stands up to the weather, making for a wonderfully dreary and tense soundtrack to the goings on under its roof. I can almost guarantee that if this film were set in, say, a cosy bed and breakfast, it wouldn't have had quite the same catalysing effect on the boggy, depressing tone that the movie already has.

Not a tea and/or coffee making facility in sight. Despicable.

Big Bad Wolves' setting is a little more fleshed out than The Hide, giving a broader depiction of modern life in Israel, which is particularly interesting from a famously ignorant Western standpoint. I didn't really have a very good idea of what life is like in this country at all, but Wolves has at least given me a peek into a tiny slice of it. The isolated house that the meat of the movie takes place in doesn't actually turn up until a good 40 minutes in, but with a larger universe to fill out that first act is key in building up the rest of the story by allowing us a glimpse of the lives of the main characters: the tortured father obsessed with stalking the man suspected of killing his daughter, who is in turn struggling with the stigma of being accused of a crime that hasn't actually been proven to be his doing, and the police officer trying to keep a hold of both the gradually stagnating case and his alienated family at the same time. All that mixed up with the social, political and religious upheaval of Israel means all the shit is flying at everybody from every angle at once.

The Arabs have it best; at least they get horses.

This movie is all about things not being quite what they seem, from the supposedly savage Arabs from a nearby village turning out to be reasonable, technologically adept human beings to the docile father and renegade police officer having far too much knowledge of torture techniques than is likely considered healthy; and the house reflects that too. The outside and interior seem relatively pleasant:

Thankfully a loooong way from Camp Crystal Lake.

But go downstairs into the basement and you'll all of a sudden find yourself in a rather sterling example of a torture pit:

"Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin."

I'll always jump at the chance to use the word 'juxtaposition' and if there ever was one then it would be now; Big Bad Wolves shows you one thing and proves to you that it's actually something else, and the house is but another extension of that idea.

Hmm. This is a toughie. I think, simply for it's imposing presence and unique setting, that The Hide will have to take the point for this round, leaving us oh so conveniently at one point each going into the final round.

The Hide: 1

Big Bad Wolves: 1

Round 3 - Humour

It all comes down to this, ladies and gentlemen. Who shall be our champion and who shall be pounded mercilessly into the dust like an unfortunate extra in Gladiator? Our final round is all about the funnies which, as I mentioned earlier, are a necessity when delving into the kind of subject matter that these films often do. That said, the darker the film, the blacker the humour gets.

The Hide, once again, goes for a more conversational and awkward misunderstanding kind of humour, and although not laugh-out-loud funny, most of the chuckle-worthy moments that do occur come from Alex MacQueen's character being a bit of a pompous knob.

Also 'cock' and 'tunt'. Heh.

I'll be honest, in retrospect that's about all that the humour in The Hide amounts to: a little word play and smart dialogue here and a garnish of awkwardness there. That said, as with the rest of the film, it's mastery is in it's own subtlety and if it were to try for anything more I would imagine it would stick out like a sore thumb. Speaking of sore thumbs...

Smoothest. Segue. Ever.

Big Bad Wolves is, yet again, a smidgen more...gun-ho. The dialogue, like The Hide, is sharp as a razor, even with the usual mistranslation here and there tripping things up but it goes a step further with some of the bleakest humour I've seen since In Bruges. Case in point: the father and police officer decide to torture the suspect in the same way that the victims were tortured, but they forget that he had also raped them; this leads to an extremely uncomfortable and "so awful that it shouldn't be funny" moment where the police officer points out that, for continuity's sake, they kind of have to rape their captive now.

"How about some cake instead?"

I think we need not look any further. Simply for having the balls to make a joke that close to the bone I have to give the final point to Big Bad Wolves. Sorry, The Hide, but that makes you the loser. That said, you still gain the moral victory by not prevailing entirely through the power of your grotesque imagination; that's got to be a plus.

The Hide: 1

Big Bad Wolves: 2

Finish Him...

I'm so sorry for this, The Hide, you really were good. But alas not good enough, and so I sentence you to death by being force fed cake and chicken paste sandwiches until your stomach ruptures and crows feast on your spilled entrails.