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He Helped Me: A Fan Film from the Book of Saw (2021)
A valiant attempt
A pretty decent idea for a fan film that unfortunately falls at every technical and script hurdle.
Each actor playing the surviving victims/"helped" characters gives a believable performance but none of their characters' stories is fully realised - not that big an ask for what's essentially four short films with a wraparound conceit.
The sound mix is all over the place and the documentary style is poorly served by intertitles that add very little value where a standard voice over might have had greater impact.
Surprise, ill-conceived cameo by co-director Thomas Caxton as "Collin Breaschewell" (a spelling so contrived it can only be a "wily" anagram of something) breaks what little fourth-wall the film offers for no apparent reason.
A curio for Saw completists, but not much more.
Cherry Tree Lane (2010)
Short, sharp and nasty - mostly in the good way
Class and race in modern Britain are front and centre in this cheap but undeniably watchable thriller. Like Haneke's best work, it is more about what goes unseen than about what is shown.
Ashley Chin is by far the standout performer, bringing nuance, character, depth and even a twisted conscience to an otherwise chaotic situation.
Though it skates dangerously close to stereotype at times, the film does manage to avoid the obvious to tell a story that is worth one's time. At 77 minutes, that's not a lot to ask.