SCURRY (2024)

Studio:   Signature Entertainment
Director: Luke Sparke
Writer:   Tom Evans
Producer: Carmel Imrie, Carly Sparke
Stars:    Jamie Costa, Emalia

Review Score:

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Summary:

Two strangers must work together to survive being trapped in a subterranean tunnel infested with deadly creatures.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Amid a strange series of unexplained quakes that have been plaguing the city, recovering alcoholic Mark becomes trapped underground as the surface descends into chaos. Badly injured by broken glass that punctures his stomach, Mark tries calling his estranged wife Liv to check on their two children, but his message goes to voicemail.

Mark crawls through a tunnel until he meets a woman named Kate. Kate warns Mark that the quakes have been caused by spider-like creatures rising from underground, and she became trapped in the subterranean rubble following an attack that killed her sister. Pulling a gun on him, Kate forces Mark to risk a monster attack by backtracking to pick up pills she dropped, getting their reluctant alliance to survive together off to an uneasy start.

Mark and Kate find a seemingly dead man pinned under fallen rocks. From the body, Mark recovers a knife and Kate recovers a hipflask. Refusing to drink from the flask because he has been sober for six months, Mark uses the alcohol to treat his wound.

The man unexpectedly moves, attracting a creature that pulls him away into darkness. Mark and Kate continue crawling, but they end up in a physical struggle after Kate indicates Mark is expendable and he attacks her with the knife. Their altercation is interrupted by a monster attacking Mark. Kate does nothing to help Mark, but he uses the knife to fight his way free.

During a respite, Mark tells Kate how he failed his family by drunkenly starting a housefire that endangered his children, which is why he quit drinking. Detailing her own hardships and family problems, Kate encourages Mark to be a better man for his wife and kids instead of giving up due to self-pity.

Mark and Kate arrive at a ladder leading back to the surface, but a large grate prevents access. Two soldiers above offer to help, but they are suddenly slaughtered by a creature.

Mark and Kate flee to another tunnel where they have to swim underwater to continue forward. The two of them eventually reach an opening leading outside, but shortly after another creature encounter, Kate drops dead in front of Mark.

Overcome with despair, Mark reflects on how he disappointed his family. Mark decides to shoot himself with the same gun Kate repeatedly threatened him with only to discover it never contained any bullets.

Mark’s phone receives a voicemail from his frightened wife asking him to come home as she and their kids hide from the monsters, who are growing bigger when exposed to daylight. His courage renewed, Mark uses his phone’s alarm to attract a creature that drags away Kate’s body, clearing a path.

Mark uses his lighter to fend off another creature with fire. Mark then finally makes it outside, but he sees that the entire city has been destroyed, creature eggs lie everywhere, and a massive monster towers above crumbling buildings.

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Review:

Gimmicks can be great when they’re deployed as integral narrative tools. Although it became increasingly preposterous how cliffhangers had a habit of always occurring 59 minutes into each hour, “24” managed to get eight seasons out of its “events occur in real time” format, and the Kiefer Sutherland series became more memorable because of it. The Ryan Reynolds thriller “Buried” took the idea of a single location thriller beyond being a purely economical way to make a movie, and made its coffin setting a key component of claustrophobic suspense that couldn’t be generated any other way.

Edited to look like it was shot entirely in one take, “Scurry” has a gimmick too. What it doesn’t have is a story that needs to be told as a 99-minute oner, compounding the problem of being uncompelling by also being leashed to a restrictive frame the fiction fails to benefit from.

With a series of strange quakes causing chaos throughout the city, Mark becomes trapped underground at the start of “Scurry,” simultaneously trapping unaware viewers inside an undercooked movie. Here is where Mark might be described to give a sense of his characterization, except there’s nearly nothing to note. Later we learn he’s a recovering alcoholic who feels like he let down his family, dropping a small seed to sprout a recyclable redemption arc. For now, all we know from a message he leaves his wife is that Mark fell in a hole before he was able to get to their kids. So, he’s some sort of family man and that’s about it, counting for the first two flat tires on “Scurry’s” clunky car.

The other two tires have their air let out 12 minutes later, when Mark meets a woman named Kate who got caught in the same subterranean rubble. Equally underwhelming, Kate doubles the dullness with another hollow personality describable as abrasive and arrogant, two traits that are always impediments to audience engagement. Despite needing to survive the same predicament, Kate repeatedly pulls a gun on Mark to make him do what she wants, like retrieving a pill bottle she dropped. The two of them also trade sob stories during a respite, which completes the meager amount of basic background for the duo.

Mark and Kate’s situation requires crawling slowly through a long slog, desperate to find a literal light at the end of the tunnel that might offer escape, for them as well as for the weary souls on their couches still sticking it out until the end. Urging them on their way are spider-like creatures only briefly glimpsed in constant darkness, usually lit by the flickering flame of Mark’s little lighter or a small camcorder screen.

“Scurry” can’t capture the crushing helplessness of a choking underground environment in part because you can physically see that the main tunnel is an incomplete cylinder that’s been cut so the camera can be beside them. If the movie were able to properly block shots instead of having to stay on one side due to the one-take setup, “Scurry” would not only gain the ability to stage more cinematic action, it wouldn’t be so visually uninteresting. The movie cuts off its own creativity by reducing the camera to a mere recording device rather than a conduit for crafting dynamic thrills.

Every card in the deck is stacked against “Scurry,” but that’s by its own unfortunate design. The movie’s misuse of the oner isn’t conceptually clever; it’s an active hindrance to creating an immersive setting and doesn’t make sense for the paper-thin premise. It’s already a tall order to task two actors with carrying a whole show on their backs, but with one of those actors having no previous feature film experience, they don’t possess the presence or the chemistry necessary to energize a lethargic vibe. Factor in darkened imagery that feels like what it is, a pair of people crammed into a cramped space for an overlong amount of time, and it becomes impossible to find a hook that makes the movie worth watching.

Cursory characters. Languid pacing. Nonexistent suspense. “Scurry’s” experiment to disguise a bland B-movie as a one-take thriller bursts every flask in the lab, and there’s no buoy to save viewers from drowning in the drabness.

Review Score: 25

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