Paul Hough’s debut feature film The Human Race takes its inspiration from many films, not least of which Battle Royale, but still manages to appear entirely original and forward thinking. Part horror, part science fiction, this is a film that is as intelligent as it is visceral and manages to keep you guessing right up until the potentially divisive finale.
Around 80 people from every walk of life are suddenly abducted from a city street and find themselves in some kind of fenced in arena. As confusion and panic set in they can each hear a voice in their heads setting out the ‘rules’. Don’t step on to the grass; don’t deviate from the path; race or die. It turns out that breaking any of these rules, or being lapped will result in their head exploding leaving a bloody corpse. This will continue until only one remains. And so they race.
The Human Race is an impressive, thought provoking film that raises the question as to how far will you go to survive. The difference from previous versions of this study of morality is that with Hough’s film the abductees who are forced to compete are of all ages and all types. This is not just a battle between children or a fight for freedom between prisoners. This is a dark, unflinching examination of how conflicted and how easily corruptible the human soul can become.
Characters change dramatically and murderously as their impending fate becomes ever clearer with survival their only remaining consideration. And yet nothing ever seems contrived or unbelievable. On more than one occasion you will ask yourself ‘what would I do?’ if faced with similar decisions to some of the desperate competitors, and guiltily, would you do the same? For the horror fan there is also some wholly unpleasant and guiltily satisfying gore.
Little is left to the imagination as the number of forced entrants quickly dwindles but despite the extreme nature of the deaths it never becomes cartoon-like and this can only be to the credit of the special effects team who have achieved convincing results on what must have been a very limited budget. If there is a flaw it is the finale. While being a little ambiguous there is still a sense of it taking the story perhaps a twist too far and though many audiences will like and appreciate the ending, it felt strangely disappointing given how impressive everything that had gone before was.
OVERALL SUMMARY
That said The Human Race is a hugely impactful and entertaining horror film that pushes the boundaries of accepted decency without ever straying into the realms of distastefulness. This is an impressive feature from Hough and definitely something to build upon.
