Cry_Wolf film review

certificate_12A

CRY_WOLF

There's a popular parlour game called Mafia in which participants must either evade capture if they are the killer or track down the baddies if they are innocent. It was made into a BBC gameshow a couple of years ago and now forms the basis of this American teen-based thriller. Unfortunately, getting a group of friends together to play Mafia would be a much more satisfying choice than sitting through the predictable Cry_Wolf, a film with an underscore in the title that is meant presumably to convey a hip computer-related premise, but which ultimately is a very old-fashioned affair.

You can often tell it's the New Year by looking at the types of film out on release. As well as the award contenders, there is usually a collection of low-budget (and low grade) horrors or thrillers which have failed to climb to the top of the American box office charts. Distributors release them here because they know that one or two, with the right marketing campaign, may sneak up unawares on an audience and make a fortune (hence the otherwise inexplicable box office success of last year's White Noise).

Cry_Wolf is however unlikely to make much of a splash. Its distinctly C-grade script is more than reminiscent of straight-to-video material: a youngster arrives at an exclusive prep school and falls in with the cool gang who get together every night at midnight to play their own version of Mafia, whose aim is to spread gossip and threats about other pupils and teachers.

But when strange things begin to happen - a room is ransacked, a body is discovered - the gang begins to fear that their game is out of their control. Could one of them actually be Wolf, a serial killer who is preying on the enclosed environment of the college? With its gimmicky and grating use of computers, instant messengers and a good deal of corporate branding the film tries to capture the zeitgeist, but fails to realise that thrillers have moved on considerably in the last ten years.