FRIGHTFEST 2020 - Sea Fever

FRIGHTFEST 2020

Neasa Hardiman's Sea Fever is a gloriously tense body horror that perfectly exploits a remote setting for big thrills and spills.

If the atmospheric setting of an isolated trawler stuck in the North Sea in a vast body of water is not frightening enough, add on a parasitical bacteria contaminating the crew one by one, and the intensity is intensified ten-fold. It is this prickly atmosphere akin to The Thing that works wonders in its effective slow burn and thrilling intensity of "who is next?". 

Hardiman plays that very game quite well, not falling back on the simple genre conventions of the main character surviving to the end, adding a far greater emphasis on engagement and intensity with a narrative that is not guided by genre convention. That being said when the horror ramps up, it does so in a spectacularly gruesome and minimalistic fashion, resulting in small spills with significant thrills creating exquisite engagement.

Nevertheless, the film does not work without the strong performances onboard. Not only in the effectiveness of the horror atmosphere but also in the theme of isolation. For a more profound impact there needs to be a strong basis of character, and Sea Fever has that in strides. Hermione Corfield leads the way as Siobhán, in an ironic fish out of water environment that plays perfectly. Corfield adds excellent depth and weight to the feature, and the narrative in which a mysterious virus erupts and rips the group apart. Corfield perfectly inhabits the anxiety-inducing intensity of this situation and the panic that unfolds adds great depth to the overall experience.

Sea Fever works in the same approach as the parasite itself, beginning in a slow and meandering burn, only to inevitably grow and cultivate in a thrilling and intense pace. Resulting in a tense, atmospheric and gloriously anxious inducing horror.