Directed by Ciaran Foy
Images from http://cinema-way.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Citadel-movie-poster.jpg and http://www.upcoming-movies.com/new/citadel-poster-2/
...
Amazing...
Like Children of Men? You'll probably enjoy this.
Protagonist Tommy's talent, Aneurin Barnard, does an amazing job with a complicated character. Seriously.
From the walk, to the occasional stutter, to a final transformative moment when he acts like a normal self-respecting male, Barnard nailed everything! In my opinion because of his performance in this piece, he is one of the best actors I've ever seen! It will be awesome to maybe meet him in person one day. For now, I've become a fan.
This movie is so boss.
Young husband and soon to be father, Tommy, is trying to get off of an elevator to see his wife, waiting on the other side of the elevator's window when the door won't open! Through the window Tommy sees his wife approached by a gang of kids. They become aggressive and Tommy is powerless. The elevator goes down to the ground level before he can get off and run back to floor 11. Once there he finds his wife on the ground with a needle in her pregnant belly. In the hospital she becomes comatose, however the baby is delivered unharmed.
The better part of a year later Tommy is struggling with severe agoraphobia, seldom leaving his apartment except to go to the hospital or group therapy sessions.
Tommy finally decides he needs to take his wife off life support and literally move on. He wants to take his daughter, Elsa, and go somewhere out of their dingy part of the city.
When turning in his keys, Tommy unfortunately misses his bus. Being that he lives in a shady part of town he breaks into his old place and tries to hold out in there for the night.
Others show up too... Kids break in, beat Tommy, tear apart the second floor looking for something and eventually split. Of course he immediately thinks it's the same kids as before.
Tommy, shaken of course (and this situation is not helping his agoraphobia), is however relieved to find Elsa unharmed. Tommy then tears apart the downstairs, using cabinet doors to cover open patches in the door from the invasion.
He then holes up with Elsa in the bathroom. Who knows how long he was actually thinking he could make it in there. Armed with a hammer he hears someone force their way through the front door and try to open the bathroom. Luckily it's a familiar voice. Marie, employee at the hospice Tommy's wife was in, has come over to check on them.
She works on getting them to leave the house and takes the two back to her place for a while until the next bus comes.
On their way to drop Tommy and Elsa off at the bus stop they are confronted by a group of kids. Tommy wants to turn back and take a long way around them, but Marie insists their just harmless misunderstood homeless youth trying to get by. She tries to prove it by confronting them. This goes horribly wrong and they destroy her.
Tommy frantically runs for it with baby Elsa and is lucky enough to catch the bus somehow. The bus goes several stops before one of the kids breaks on and kills everyone else. Tommy catches a glimpse of the killer and it doesn't look like any child he's ever seen. The kid looks like a grey wrinkled wreck. Somehow it doesn't seem like it can see either. It senses people in some other way... More of the kids get on the but and steal Elsa away from Tommy, knocking him unconscious.
When he comes to he's in a hospital bed. He gets up and looks for help, finding a priest who had attending his wife's funeral. He had previously mentioned how those 'kids' aren't kids at all, and Elsa is in danger.
The priest makes a deal with Tommy that he'll help him get his daughter back if Tommy will help catch the kids' building on fire.
Tommy, the priest, and child Danny (rescued from the 'kids' by the priest) head out immediately in the night. The priest explains that the kids are the tortured spawn rooted back to, more or less, a crack whore. During her addiction she had two children who interbred. Having been on drugs since before their were born they grow up on the only substance their know. The drug ends up becoming something worse than meth or crack. It blinds the kids to everything except fear. They see and target grown ups who are afraid, Tommy being the perfect target. And they steal other children, get them addicted, and thus keep their gang growing. This is why they've taken Elsa. If she stays too long she'll become one of them.
Danny, having lived in the midst of the kids, has some of their attributes like the ability to see fear, and their wrinkled grey hands. Tommy in his fear knows he's anything but invisible to these things, but the priest assures him that another of Danny's other abilities is he can hide fear so long as Tommy holds the boy's hand.
During the darkness the kids are on the prowl, leaving their building mostly empty, so the group has to set the building to explode just as everyone gets back at dawn. Inside the building, the very one Tommy used to live in one year ago, they turn on the gas valves and strike holes into the pipes on various floors. They also set plastic explosives. All they need to do now is get Elsa then turn the ignition on in their care and the place will burn.
Unfortunately a sickness flares up and the priest hacks up blood. He has presumably been ill for some time, after probably injected or bitten by the kids when he saved Danny fromt them. Suddenly Danny can see him! This means only one thing--the priest is afraid.
He tells Tommy and Danny to get Elsa and leave. Why can't Danny hide both of them, Tommy wants to know. Because... Danny could never hide anyone.
Leading the remaining monsters in the building away from the two boys, the priest is beaten to death.
Tommy finds Elsa in the basement, with other babies being converted. It's the very place Danny was once held. Danny freaks out at this reunion, and it's Tommy's turn to be brave enough for the group of them.
Tommy takes both kids and they head for the exit. Only yards from a clean getaway they see daylight and the creatures coming back. Danny, unable to truly hide fear, and fearing getting stolen again, doubts that they'll make it out. Tommy wraps his girl in one arm and holds Danny tight with his other. 'They won't see us.'
They walk right past them.
At the car, they turn the ignition. The building is in flames. Danny has a new family, Elsa has been rescued, and Tommy has finally become the man he is meant to be.
I like this happy ending :)
The whole stealing children and having them turn into deformed goblin things gave me a real Labyrinth moment fo sho.
This film has a more slower steady pace than lots of Hollywood horror. Short attention spans probably won't go well with this film. The subtlety of the monsters is eerie, but again not for people who can't focus.
Have you seen Aphex Twin's music video Come to Daddy? It's a music video about these kids in an abandoned building who summon some sort of evil that then proceeds to harass an old woman passing by. It's more creepy than that, certainly, but it fits well with this movie.
The colors are pretty muted like Children of Men. There's no airborne mystery sterilyzing virus though. There's also no stars known in the US in it.
Congrats to Ciarin Foy on an awesome first time directing a feature length himself.
Also great job with the talent selected. James Cosmo (the priest), Wunmi Mosaku (Marie) and Aneurin Barnard (Tommy) are an amazing group. Barnard seems to be a really dedicated actor, having spent time in those therapy groups and visited people with extreme agoraphobia. Reminds me of Gaspard Ulliel from Hannibal Rising. I recall reading that he visited medical schools to get antiquated with dead bodies for his role.
Love this movie.
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