Inspector Hannah: John Shrapnel
Caseworker: Miriam Margoyles
Charlotte: Laurel Holloman
Alice: Claire Goose
Jen: Isabel Brook
Sarah: Caroline Carver
Stacie: Claudia Harrison
Jackie: Susan Vidler
Night Porter: Rick Wakeman
Desk Sergeant: Gwen Vaughan
WPC: Stephanie Shaw
Newsreader: Kate Crowther
Hospital Porter: Philip James Claydon
Alone is a wannabe psychological thriller that starts with the opening tome:
"From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone
And all I loved, I loved alone"
This weird rhyme at the start sets the tone for the fact that fruitloop woman Alex (never identified in the
credits) is suffering badly since her parents died 13 years ago when she was just eleven. She's getting
strange nightmares that can only be kept at bay when she isn't alone, so to sort this out she needs a 'partner',
or translated into English - she wants to murder girl after girl until she's satisfied, starting with
Alice (Casualty's Claire Goose), who I was hoping would be in it rather longer than the opening
credits.
The nightmares are something Alex regularly discusses with her caseworker (Miriam Margoyles), as well as
keeping records of the number of hours' sleep she's getting each night.
As a film, it plods along in an intriguing manner with each of the cast members making the best of what
they've got but it's not enough to go on to make a satisfying film. That said, the best performances
come from John Shrapnel (above right), one of those actors whose face you've seen countless times
but you can never remember what he was in and the gorgeous Caroline Carver (right) as Sarah, who's also
Alex's sister, so for her to end up as a victim too, after getting some weird and threatening letters,
doesn't quite sit right but then perhaps it wasn't designed to make any kind of sense or that we'd have
to rely on Alex being the aforementioned fruitloop.
You'll continue watching this film until the end, but there isn't the kind of payoff you've been waiting
for which really feels like a missed opportunity. However, you'll have to make do with staring at a
watchable cast that includes Laurel Holloman as Margoyles' student assistant Charlotte,
Murphy's Law's Claudia Harrison as Sarah's best friend Stacie and prog rock king
Rick Wakeman in a cameo role as the hospital night porter (and for a quick plug see my interview
with him
here).
The film was shot for a 1.85:1 theatrical ratio, but here the widescreen image has been centre-cropped
to 4:3 which is very disappointing, and this is clearly shown whenever important text would've filled
the full image (see an example on the right), and is also highlighted in the letterboxed opening titles.
On the plus side, there's a purposely grimy and bleak look to the set which helps put in the atmosphere
as indoor scenes in the caseworker's office and police station have had most of the colour sucked out of them.
There's also some very good surround sound effects to go with the weird imagery, plus spot FX of a ticking clock
and the quick-cut moments such as when the caseworker's cigarette runs out and she lights up another.
The disc has no subtitles and only a single menu option to start the film. Extras are noticeable by their
absence. I did actually have the original High Fliers rental DVD disc which contained a few trailers for
films out at the time but they're nothing to do with this movie and the picture ratio hasn't been
improved with this re-release.
There are 12 chapters for what that's worth, but for those of you who want to see the good stuff, here
are some pics of when Sarah is force-fed to her death, which reminded me of Robert Morley's demise in
Theatre of Blood.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Alone is a wannabe psychological thriller that starts with the opening tome:
As a film, it plods along in an intriguing manner with each of the cast members making the best of what
they've got but it's not enough to go on to make a satisfying film. That said, the best performances
come from John Shrapnel (above right), one of those actors whose face you've seen countless times
but you can never remember what he was in and the gorgeous Caroline Carver (right) as Sarah, who's also
Alex's sister, so for her to end up as a victim too, after getting some weird and threatening letters,
doesn't quite sit right but then perhaps it wasn't designed to make any kind of sense or that we'd have
to rely on Alex being the aforementioned fruitloop.
The film was shot for a 1.85:1 theatrical ratio, but here the widescreen image has been centre-cropped
to 4:3 which is very disappointing, and this is clearly shown whenever important text would've filled
the full image (see an example on the right), and is also highlighted in the letterboxed opening titles.
On the plus side, there's a purposely grimy and bleak look to the set which helps put in the atmosphere
as indoor scenes in the caseworker's office and police station have had most of the colour sucked out of them.
