After you’d thought that ‘cannibal’ horror had gone as far as it could, director Alex Lightman gives the sub-genre a new twist in his feature film debut Tear Me Apart. The first release from the appropriately named Cannibal Films, the film – which may well be the first ever romantic cannibal horror, and certainly one of the most atmospheric – looks set to create a stir with its theatrical premiere at The Genesis in London’s Whitechapel on the 16th June, followed by its on-line release a day later.
Featuring a trio of young actors – Alfie Stewart, Jennie Eggleton and Frazer Alexander – in the lead roles all making their screen debuts, the story is set in a post apocalyptic Britain where two brothers (Stewart and Alexander) have had to resort to cannibalism in order to survive. However, it’s only after the arrival of a strange girl (Eggleton) – possibly the last female in the world – that the young people’s base instincts come to the surface with harrowing repercussions for them all.
Filmed on location in Cornwall, the rugged beauty of England’s West Country lends an enigmatic air to a film which plays on its sense of mystery, as Lightman has explained. “When the idea of a post-apocalyptic world devoid of women emerged, we were adamant that the film should not explain what happened. It is essentially about three young people trying to figure out not just how to survive, but if survival is what matters most to them.”
Leaving little to the imagination in visceral terms, Tear Me Apart looks set to be a film with plenty of heart in more ways than one.
Words: Cleaver Patterson (@Cleaver68 / @ScreenAndGone)
