Salvage

 

In pursuit of ratings, Channel 4’s flagship soap Brookside went to desperate measures, from helicopter crashes, religious cult suicide pacts, incest, bodies under the patio and a postmodern rant from Jimmy Corkhill about the state of British television, which culminated in the final residents lynching a gangster (who used sweary words). Whether they would have gone to the lengths of having troops land in the close to fight off a killer mutant is anyone’s guess, but that’s what Lawrence Gough has done with Salvage, a low-budget horror shot on Brookie’s disused sets. It’s an efficient genre workout, with plenty of shocks and splats and a political subtext, but most impressively, it successfully combines dread with the domestic, its story of the fractured relationship between a mother (McIntosh) and daughter performed with conviction. There are, however, gaping plot holes, and it loses credibility once the unconvincing creature appears. Here’s hoping things improve when someone decides to move ninja werewolves into the Crossroads Motel.