One from the to watch pile…

Boarding School (2018)

Film: Don’t you just love those movies that surprise you?

The only reason I grabbed this movie, Boarding School, was that I needed a ‘free’ movie in one of those ‘buy two, get one free’ deals, and in this case, the free movie is the winner, and I can’t even remember what the other two were!

Written and directed by Boaz Yakin, who wrote films like the original Punisher movie (no, not that one: the 1989 one!), Now You See Me and The Rookie, and directed Remember the Titans and Safe, so whilst it has an odd pedigree, it is a solid one.

Jacob (Luke Prael) is an odd boy: quiet, likes horror movies and comics (wow, this cuts close to home already!) with a mother (Samantha Mathis) who is oppressive and obsessed with his well being. His grandmothers dies and he becomes somewhat obsessed with her and when he gets in trouble at school, his step father informs him that she is sending him to a small boarding school outside of town.

The school is run by Dr. and Mrs Sherman (Will Patton and Tammy Blanchard, respectively) and it is run with a cruel iron fist and devoted heavily to the teaching of the Holy Bible. There are only a few students at the school, all of whom suffer from various mental and physical disorders and the teachers objective seems to be to get the devil out of them, but the longer Jacob stays, the worse things seem to get… and the death of one of the students starts a series of events that will change Jacob’s life forever!

This story is engaging from the start, and has an extraordinarily interesting bunch of characters and situations that will keep you guessing as to where the story is going to lead, and whilst one specific plot point is obvious, the trail of the rest of it remains surprising and there are certaining some atypical story decisions made, which is probably why this snuck out straight to DVD.

The acting in the film is amazing. All the children are exceptionally talented and carry a huge pile of emotional weight in their roles, and there is some difficult issues happening within their character’s psyche. Will Patton is, of course, extraordinary as the oppressive teacher.

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie and highly recommend it.

Score: ****1/2

Format: This film was reviewed on the Australia DVD which runs for approximately 107 minutes and is presented in a far-too-dark 1.85:1 image, which I am not sure was deliberate or not but the film was too dark for anything other than a night time viewing. The audio was a perfect Dolby Digital 5.1

Score: ***1/2

Extras: Unfortunately none, but unlike most DVDs that don’t offer any extras, this at least has scene select and set-up, which is just subtitles for the hearing impaired.

Score: 0

WISIA: Whilst it is an amazing film, I am not so sure it’s rewatchability is of a high level.