What started so long ago in the backroads of Texas has officially spread the world over. Even in England's green and pleasant land if you exit your vehicle outside a major metropolitan area you WILL be butchered and made into meat pies by a hick in a sheep mask.

So I really wanted to dig this movie. I've yet to see a really good British hick slasher and I instantly liked today's cannibal murderer - big shaved headed guy in some kind of filthy sheep mask. The English countryside was beautifully shot too, a perfect place to spend a nice Summer evening watching non-locals enter the food chain.

But in the end this movie epitomises what's wrong with modern slasher flicks: most of 'em aren't even about weirdos killing kids anymore. I mean the Tootsie Pop owl could just about count the number of kill scenes in the damn movie. Sure it's crazy brutal for a few seconds once in a while and there's a teaser kill right at the start, but what are we doing for the other 80 minutes?

Getting to know the livestock of course, for the all important character development 'cause I just love watching the banal social interactions of people I hate. Most of the movie is thus indistinguishable from an MTV soap opera, so one of them is a shy guy with asthma who has a secret crush on the goth chick who might be preggo and is fucking the asshole guy who's cheating on this other girl who...

Movie, you might as well be reading me the legal disclaimer on a bag of party balloons. Then the last 20 minutes is always just chasing and action scenes which leaves only a tiny bit in the middle for the part of the movie I actually give a damn about - the kill pieces. So instead of a proper slasher flick we typically get an episode of Melrose Place followed by a couple quick murders and then everybody runs around yelling until the end.

How about this for a change: spend a half hour showing me the mundane details of the killer's day instead. It has to be more interesting than listening to twentysomethings banter about sex for the trillionth time in a movie. Show me how he makes the cool sheep mask, or let's watch him prepare the meat for his burger stand. What does he do with the bones? What football team does he support? Bet it's Pompey.