The Cottage

The Cottage (2008): It seems the horror comedy field has become a cottage industry with films seemingly coming out of the woodwork in this genre and The Cottage appears to fit into this category as well. While The Cottage didn’t exactly come out of the woodwork, it seems rather to have come out of the Isle of Man, an unusual source to be sure. In the film, a pair of unusually inept crooks (they’re related so it must be in the genes) kidnap a nasty crime boss’ daughter in order to get enough money to get one brother out of the house so they can each live in their own digs. One is a veteran though lower echelon criminal, while his brother doesn’t usually get involved with the inner workings of the syndicate. In league with the equally dim step brother of the victim, the three truly mess up ‘the perfect crime’. The nasty boss sends the son with the ransom which turns out to be tissue paper and also sends his two favorite Korean hit men to follow and straighten everyone out, or more likely, plant them. However, the victim gets the upper hand and knocks out her step brother while one brother is making another call for more ransom in the local town. She then kidnaps the third kidnapper and forces him into the woods to make a break for it. Needless to say, they all wind up at a farmhouse with a most unpleasant resident who doesn’t take kindly to trespassers and is quite fond of using sharp farming implements. So what started out as a crime farce quickly lurches into a splatter comedy with multiple removals of bodily parts for just about everyone. However, the spirit of the film is set about right and quite a few guilty chuckles can be had for the intestinally hardy. The movie is unrated but would probably slash an R for: excessive brothers, ineffective Koreans, multiple head removals, multiple toe removals, pick in the leg, knife in the side, turkey in the straw, and for the extremely effective head butting by the ingénue.