KICKING off the weekend’s action at Manchester’s brand new Triple Six Horror Festival was Quarries, an entertaining if slightly predictable little thriller that saw a group of female wilderness explorers get picked off by murderous locals.
There’s no denying that this is a film we’ve all seen before and while certainly be enjoyable, Quarries does suffer from a complete lack of motivation on the part of the killers…they appear to simply be hunting people.
It brings little new to the sub-genre that houses such greats as Neil Marshall’s The Descent and you can almost plan out who’s going to die and in what order right from the first but therein lies the entertainment.
Quarries is an occasionally brutal, fun and satisfying horror thriller and tells the story of Kat (Nicole Marie Johnson), a woman who joins a wilderness expedition to escape her abusive boyfriend.
The cast of women in the wilderness group are all interesting enough in their own right, particularly Wren (Carrie Finklea).
All these women are struggling with some aspect of their lives and they are on this expedition to try and escape and help with that.
The dynamic between the women and their characters’ are the strong aspects of this film. Sadly, it is the killers themselves that are the weak point.
From the first minute to the last, there was no explanation as to why they were hunting the women down. It seems like they were just supposed to be passed off as ‘psychotic’ but without knowing why, we don’t really have a complete story. The fights, violence and the kills themselves are great, however.
Really nice first short "Your Date Is Here" + interesting psychos chasing broken girls for "Quarries" @TripleSixHorror #triplesix
— ✴ Marion Berdoati Sauzedde (@MarionBerdoati) May 27, 2017
The film was preceded by two shorts, Your Date is Here and Hada. The first boasted a very interesting concept of an old board game involving a telephone that on the other end, was not the recorded game messages there was supposed to be.
The second, a Spanish language film, was a lesson in how to create jump-scares effectively by using timing and lighting perfectly.
Triple Six Horror Festival is showing nine shorts throughout the weekend before most of the feature films being shown.
Back onto Quarries, it is a very easy watch. There are no real bigger questions being asked here but that’s not what this film is about and that is perfectly fine.
There are some very nice, interesting character moments, enough entertaining violence to satisfy horror fans and perhaps the most interesting thing about it is that it actually ends rather unconventionally for films of this nature, despite being mostly predictable.
Great turn out for our first film of the festival, #Quarries, starting in ten mins. #TripleSix @amccinemas_UK
— Triple Six Fest (@TripleSixHorror) May 27, 2017
Seek it out if you’re a fan of the sub-genre of ‘explorers in unknown territory getting hunted down by locals’ films…or, you could just watch The Hills Have Eyes again. No one would blame you.
Keep a look out for plenty more content coming in the next few days from Triple Six Horror Festival.
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