Although this film was made thanks to sponsorship from the Irish film board, it is far from a piece of Catholic dogma. The character who plays the priest renounces religion entirely and the film's horror is an original and recent addition to the genre. It's full of good ideas and can be related to relatively recent phenomena; the urban sprawl and the creation of enormous flatblocks outside city centres, prevalent across the United Kingdom. Most frighteningly perhaps it represents the disaffected youth who hide themselves from the enormous collection of security cameras which dictate their life. Spawns of drug selling youth hide their identity behind hoodies; who'd have guessed 20 years ago that being approached by a group of youth wearing tracksuits would be such a menacing phenomenon. In this film creative use is made of this fear. The film is far from perfect, but most important is its originality, fear is created the way it should be, as suspense, and the implication of the horror created by its themes don't require an enormous spilling of blood or disgusting special effects to disquiet and disturb you. I'm glad I saw this film; it proves again that truly good additions to the genre, don't originate from Hollywood and don't require its approval to be made.
Review of Citadel
