Most serious historians consider the myth of Sawney Bean to be exactly that - a myth , someone who never existed and a dark fairytale . It's interesting that people who consider Bean to be based in reality can't agree on where he lived . Some say he lived in Ayrshire whilst others say he lived in Galloway . If you can't even agree on where someone is supposedly to have lived that might tell you something . No one said films had to be realistic especially horror films and this movie uses a premise of " What if a descendant of Sawney was living amongst us in present day Scotland " and from the opening titles reality goes right out of the window
It's not so much the lazy exposition of using captions and voice over that's the problem but feels the need to end it on a long mega laugh out loud that wouldn't feel out of place in a pantomime but if you're expecting high camp you're going to be disappointed if not alienated down to the lack of humour and excess of graphic gore . The action then cuts to a Doctor being driven through the snow clad mountains of the Scottish Highlands of 1990 . Right so the Sawney descendants of Ayrshire / Galloway have relocated to the Highlands ? You can guarantee that no matter what it'll never be revealed why Sawney's descendants have left their ancestral home . The Doctor is supposedly about to deliver a baby to a woman hooded and tied to a giant wooden cross but doesn't get to do this because the man who drove him there pulls out a shotgun and shoots him . So someone went to all the trouble of getting a Doctor to deliver a baby and then shooting him without delivering a baby . It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense but since we're now two minutes in to the running time things can only improve . Except they don't because we're treated to abysmal acting and a plot full of holes and contrivance such as busy city centre streets not having any CCTV cameras
Where the film does deserve some credit is for its cinematography and for a film that obviously didn't cost a fortune it does give the proceedings a haunted bleak feel , so much so it makes VALHALLA RISING seem like a musical comedy . However this is often negated by performances that give the impression the cast are reading out their shopping list . The only exception to this is David Hayman who thinks he's appearing as a villain in a pantomime . Sawney is also portrayed as a religious Scottish maniac but for some reason no one thinks of asking him if he's a Catholic cannibal or a Protestant cannibal . Now that takes some swallowing
