Credo cinema premiere at Grimmfest 2009 & QuietEarth review
We spent Halloween in Manchester where Credo had it’s full cinema premiere at the Odeon Printworks as part of the Grimm Up North Horror Festival. It was great to see the film up on the big screen and the sound at the Odeon was fantastic which added a whole new level of creepiness and tension!
Credo leading lady, MyAnna Buring, was also in attendance and it was great to catch up with her. The occasion was tinged with sadness, however, as we were sorely missing the late Stephen Gately who plays Simon in Credo. The screening was dedicated to Stephen as it would also have been his cinema premiere.
US genre website QUIET EARTH was there and they have subsequently published a very favourable review of Credo. Thank you Quietearth.us! Here it is in full:
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Credo is a low-budget horror film directed by Toni Harman, written by Alex Wakeford and set in London. The film starts off with a group of Catholic students attempting to summon the devil himself. Of the five, Simon (the late Stephen Gately, who carries himself very well) is their leader, with his roots in Irish Catholicism; he’s seemingly obsessed with finding Satan, so as better to defeat him. Poor old Seth however, gets cold feet and runs away from the séance. Next morning, his four friends are all dead from suicide…
We then cut to another group of students, several years later, and they’ve just been evicted from their flat. Jock, a boisterous American… um… jock, has held one party too many and the landlord boots them onto the streets. Alice (MyAnna Burning) is a practical and dedicated psychology student who spends all her time in the college library studying for exams. Timmi is a shy brunette who has a secret crush, and Scott is a well intentioned nerd, who also has a secret crush. With their somewhat token and underwritten black friend Jasmine in tow, the five of them break into Eden Catholic Halls to spend a weekend of boozy fun and Ouija board tinkering.
Hands-down the best thing about Credo is this, and if you really don’t want a slight spoiler then skip to the next paragraph: It’s old-school, it’s cerebral and it’s scary, but there is no horror except that which is suggested. I live for a film that can scare me without resorting to buckets of gore, grotesque make-up or weak CGI, and once Credo gets going, it’s really an effective horror film. After a shaky start which has some pretty dodgy acting, the film finds its feet and we follow the characters through a terrifying journey in which Satan will try his best, through hallucination and time-shifts, to convince each person to commit suicide, so they die in sin and he claims their souls.
Harman has wisely chosen an incredible location for Eden, it’s a huge complex of run-down bedrooms and hallways, full of old mattresses and filthy radiators, broken lights and years worth of dust and grime, and it helps to perfectly set the tone and atmosphere for the film. Scott attaches cameras around the building too, and we get shots on his laptop in night-vision which are used effectively and add to the chills. The music and sound design warrant mention too, as they are simply terrific in turning-up the fright factor and keeping the audience tense as to the next scare, especially the microphone that Scott uses to pick up signals that humans can’t normally hear, that freaked me out completely!
In all – An effective and chilling horror film that uses inventive camera work, imaginative sound design and that overlooked little technique known as suspense and suggestion to create some real scares.
Take 5 students, a degree in the occult, a creepy old halls of residence, and what do you get? The perfect setting for a bit of ouija board and devil worship.
