The gritty British crime thriller is at its grittiest in this revenge story from director Jonathan Zaurin. When her father is brutally murdered, Abigail (Suzanne Fulton) is on the warpath. At the same time (and also before, as the narrative shifts back and forth to and from the aftermath of the crime), a young man (Matt, played by Michael Coombes) struggles with the return of his older brother, Ewan (Pete Bird). As Abigail struggles to let go of her loss, the pair are set on a violent collision course.

‘Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves,’ goes the old Confucius maxim. Rarely before has the hopelessness of vengeance been so hammered home as it is here, in a journey which proves to be an utterly miserable pursuit for Abigail. In a grounded twist on the formula, the film’s female protagonist is no superwoman, nor even particularly competent – she’s just angry and looking for someone to hurt. It’s a powerful performance from Fulton, cutting a striking figure amid the bleakly shot British cityscape.

Coombes, too, impresses as young Matt, a sensitive figure caught up in a terrible situation that quickly spirals out of his control. As the film switches between (desaturated) colour and grainy black-and-white, it lives in the morally grey; its main characters conflicted and messy.

Derelict is a bleak, nihilistic version of the revenge thriller, eschewing the subgenre’s more triumphalist beats in favour of something far more difficult and upsetting.

DERELICT premiered at Pigeon Shrine FrightFest on August 25th, 2024.