Ciaran Foy / Ireland/Scotland / 2012 / 84 min
Examining themes of urban paranoia and agoraphobia, Ciaran Foy’s award-winning low budget Citadel explores fear and belief in a new nightmarish vision of modern Glasgow. Traumatised by a brutal attack on his heavily pregnant wife, Tommy (Aneurin Bernard) finds himself caring for their baby daughter whilst trying to overcome his new fear of the outside. But when Tommy becomes convinced that the youths who attacked his wife are coming back for his daughter, he teams up with an unconventional Priest, (James Cosmo) to stop them once and for all.
Filmed in Glasgow in the winter, Foy’s horror presents the city as a frozen and dying landscape, with efforts at regeneration leading to empty streets and boarded houses making the city seem unsettling and unwelcoming. However Citadel is not just a film about paranoia and dangerous youths but also one of endurance and self-belief, as Tommy soon learns that his fear is what’s attracting the youths to him and more specifically his daughter. While the film is at points slightly predictable, at the heart of it is a real sense of loneliness and hopelessness. Tense, unnerving, with moments of real claustrophobia and featuring a movie-stealing performance from Cosmo, Citadel is a promising new horror with wonderfully creepy sound effects and some authentic moments of terror.
Showing as part of the Glasgow Film Festival 2013
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