Onus

Onus is the fifth film from director George Clark and can be easily classed as a low budget film. In fact the movie had very little spent on it. To make anything for that sort of money is good and the finished product here is more than impressive.

A boy wakes up at the bottom of a cliff. on one hand is a chain that is connected to middle aged man who has similar bloody injuries as the boy. In the other hand is a gun that has been securely taped to him. He cannot recall just how he got there. It takes a few minutes of disorientation before the boy starts to remember just what is going on. Earlier in the day he found himself in a similar situation where he woke up next to his present chain friend. It soon becomes apparent that there is some sort of a sick game in place. Messages have been left on trees indicating that there is only one bullet in each gun and the only way to survive is to kill the other person. Of course neither the man nor the boy want that to happen so they must try to find a way to survive.

This is a literally a film of two halves. The first chapter concentrates on the story of the two people caught in an impossible situation. The audience initially see the story unfolding from the point of view of Keiran (Anthony Boyle). We are as mystified as he is as to why he is there. Over the next fort five minutes the psychological thriller starts to get fleshed out and the motives eventually become apparent. It is a slow process and this lends an air of mystery and suspense to the film. It works very well given that it is a two hander for the majority of this section of the movie.

The second chapter tells the story of the aftermath of the events in part one. Keiran’s mother Joan (Vivian Jamison) is trying to process exactly what happened. She is struggling. She is making the most of the support of her friend Liz (Caroline Burns Cooke) who happens to be the wife of the man (Robert Render) who was chained to her son. There is a subtext going on here as there is a lot that isn’t being said by either women. They both know something is afoot but neither wants to address it directly.

After the high point of the first half the second act is a bit of a let down. The story doesn’t carry as much weight and there are a number of production problems to contend with, mostly around the sound. The characters are not quite as interesting as their male counterparts an are not as fully formed in terms of character development. While this doesn’t ruin the film it highlights the really good work put into the first half.

Onus is out now on DVD and streaming services.

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John McArthur

Editor-in-Chief at Moviescramble. A Fan of all things cinematic with a love of Film Noir, Sci-Fi and Julia Roberts in Notting Hill. He hopes to grow up some day.