Six cadets perform a night-time training exercise in their out-of-term school, only to find the place infested with burglars and ghouls.
Ah - Brit horror, why do you torment me so? This one is not the worst, and it does have some bounce to it, with a steady build to the climax. The actors do well, and some of the dialogue is good, although the usual problem of unnecessary or underdeveloped characters runs all the way through. There is some decent humour, but the story is completely contrived in a mish-mash of genre, and in the end the elements are forced together like repulsing magnets.
All the clichés of horror are poorly done - jump scares, figures in the background, sudden noises. Some comical moments - two characters run like hell from ... what? + characters come clattering down a stairs an unfeasibly long time after the sound that attracted them and ask breathless questions. And surely the prologue could have been done with less staginess and better attention to detail - the quill writing was total cheese. And it suffers the usual British coyness about sex and gore.
The music was varied, sometimes impressive, sometimes ho-hum or inappropriate.
This is low budget, so it deserves some forbearance, but you can't get around the basic problem with the story: it's about as plausible and menacing as an episode of Scooby Doo.
Why can't the Brits do horror like indie American, or the French or Spanish?
