The Daily Dig: Hush (2008)

Tense, dark, and simple, “Hush” puts a young couple in the wrong place at the wrong time—taking a bad night and making it increasingly worse.

Zakes Abbot’s life isn’t going as planned. He’s a gun-shy novelist moonlighting in a low-pressure, low-reward job. What will Zake do when his girlfriend is kidnapped by human traffickers? Let’s dig into 2008’s HUSH, directed by Mark Tonderai!

As I See It

In a world of cloud storage, the issue of phones with no memory seems a thing of the distant past. But luckily, I remember those times all too well, so I can buy in here.

One thing about crime thrillers that remains timeless is that they often take people a while to accept reality. When things seem too fantastical to have happened, no matter how common an occurrence, people become impermeable in film. It’s not all that different from real life. How many times have you heard someone on the news say, “I never thought something like this could happen in this town, on this street, etc.”?

That leaves Zake (William Ash) hopeless to find help when his girlfriend, who’s ready to leave him anyhow, goes missing.

Great tension is built, and the close-up, dark, and shadowy shots contribute to the claustrophobic atmosphere. Zake gets close to the fire and definitely gets burned by it, but he ends up making his way to the finish line.

What’s waiting for him at the end? A Wile E. Coyote finish, of course. Luckily for Zake, finally, he wasn’t up against a cartoon coyote.

Famous Faces

I’m sure if I had grown up on the other side of the pond, I would recognize a bunch of the actors in this low-budget UK production, but I didn’t. IMDb will take over from here.

Andrew Wisniewski (The Tarman) had bit parts in Die Hard, Mission Impossible, and the fourth installment in that series, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.

Stuart McQuarrie (Thorpe) popped up in two Danny Boyle films: Trainspotting and 28 Days Later.

Robbie Gee (Chimponda) had one of the funniest parts in Guy Ritchie’s brilliant dark crime comedy Snatch, as well as a role in Len Weisman’s first film in the Vampires vs Werewolves franchise, Underworld.

Sheila Reid (Mrs. Coates) was in Terry Gilliam’s dystopian fever dream, Brazil.

Of Gratuitous Nature

For a film centered around the abduction of women, it is timid overall. In other words, we’re not qualifying as an extreme horror here.

Heartthrob

The tone of the film is bleak and suffocating. The cinematography, which seems like it was an absolute nightmare to shoot in such dark conditions, is a feat of ingenuity.

Ripe for a Remake

Human trafficking is real. Groups of traffickers are real, whether they’re on a “list” or not. There is no dearth of current events or true stories ripe for the picking to inspire a horror story in the mind of a writer.

Spawns

No progeny to report, though the mid-credit epilogue left the story wide open for a sequel.

Where to Watch

You’re relegated to the DVD bargain bins, if they still have those. You can also track it down online if you hunt a little bit.