The Doom Busters

Bluesky

Back in 2019, Jack McHenry delighted Frightfest crowds with a very low budget and avowedly silly but nonetheless impressive period spoof called Here Comes Hell. Now he’s back, accompanied by cast members Tom Bailey, Margaret Clunie, Jessica Webber and Timothy Renouf, with a take on a slightly more recent flavour of 20th Century cinema, the Forties Nazi invasion of Blighty drama. Or is it a Seventies science fiction thriller? That’s not entirely clear. Bear with it. If the humour works for you at all, you’ll find it a hoot.

Our focus is on a group of men who have been left behind as their peers go off to war. Harold (Oscar Meyrick) is small and just not very good at physical things. Arthur (Bailey) struggles with asthma. William (Renouf) made it through three weeks of basic training before getting shot in the foot. Of course, this little bit of experience leads to him lording it over the others as they form a small and not terribly intimidating home guard unit under the command of Arthur’s gran (Maureen Bennett). Her latest instruction is that they hone their skills by tracking down scarecrows which she’s dressed up as Nazis and hidden in the woods. The only problem is that there’s something else in the woods – something perhaps connected to a bright light seen in the sky the previous night – and our lads are not remotely prepared to deal with it.

Fortunately, they have help. Plucky farmhand Edith (Webber) is there to provide support when they get lost, and to engage in gentle flirtation with Harold. Stranger Gail (Clunie) offers a different kind of assistance, and her mysterious origins complicate the plot. Then there’s Harry the Hermit (Philip Whitchurch), who may not be much of a fighter but knows a few things about fighting, about the ancient history of the area, and about mushrooms. You can see where this is going.

As in his previous film, McHenry demonstrates that he’s not averse to having horrible things happen to lovely people, so the risk here is very real. Now working in colour, he also delivers more gore. The budget being as tight as it is, though, a lot of the action is delivered by suggestion, and he takes the sensible decision to have his monster be invisible most of the time. With the right sound design and acting, we still have a sense of where it is and of the threat it presents. If, occasionally, this feels like watching a group of friends play at running away from a monster, that’s quite endearing in itself.

Can this band of misfit heroes save the Earth? Harold has only a mop with which to defend himself. William is hampered by unconfessed cowardice. They rely on Edith’s knowledge of the terrain and a montage of booby trap creation. Arthur, however, might just have found his true calling. So, it would seem, has McHenry.