Pod Digital Release Review | Road Rash Reviews

3 stars for this brilliantly acted but slightly confused psychological horror/thriller.

Written and directed by Mickey Keating (Ritual, Ultra Violence), POD is a very entertaining supernatural thriller, with a distinct feel of the X-files about it, both in style and substance. It recently had its European Premiere at FrightFest 2015 and will be available exclusively through Alarm Pictures on various digital platforms (see below for details).

POD is the story of three siblings, Michael (Brian Morvant – Winter’s Tale, The Grid), a war veteran, Lyla (Laurel Ashley Carter – The Woman, Jug Face), a troubled youngster and Ed (Dean Cates – Two-Bit Waltz, Ritual), the sensible, grown up one.

Ed has received a disturbing answerphone message from Michael, who has a history of mental illness and believes that he has relapsed. He heads off to try and persuade Lyla to come with him to the lake to stage an intervention and hopefully prevent his return to hospital. Lyla is with her boyfriend, John Boy (John Weselcouch – The Purge, A Sense Of Humour), they are both high and drunk and she isn’t keen, but for the sake of her brother she reluctantly agrees.

When they arrive at “middle of nowhere, Maine” they find it to be beautiful, snow covered and very remote. Martin’s house is locked up tight, with all the doors and windows covered up and taped shut and the house in a terrible state.

He is not best pleased to see them, as he specifically told them not to come and he is completely obsessed with a conspiracy theory he has concocted, regarding a strange being he has managed to lock in the cellar. He refers to it as a pod, and claims that it is a government experiment which has killed his dog.

With Martin rambling and waving a gun around, it is clear to Lyla and Ed that something is very wrong and they must try to get to the bottom of it before it’s too late for all of them.

POD is enjoyable to watch, made more so by the fantastic acting of all the main protagonists who were thoroughly believable in very harrowing situations. It does have issues however. The soundtrack is weird and I found it quite intrusive in places, rather than adding to the tension it actually removed it several times.

I also didn’t particularly like the style of cinematography. There was far too much arty farty camera blurring and strange effects which didn’t seem entirely necessary. Also it gets pretty weird towards the end, without any real explanation of what is going on, which is slightly disappointing.

That said it is still a really good film overall, plenty of jump scares, an interesting idea and fun to watch, worth a look for fans of the genre.

“Oh yeah, that’s very kind of you. Lyla, hey! Thanks for your concern. Especially considering the last time I saw you, you didn’t even have tits yet.”