Tormented - Does it know what it wants to be?

I've seen so many horror movies in my life that I'm ashamed to say that I had to re-watch the opening twenty minutes or so of this film straight after sitting through it, simply to make sure I actually understood it!  It starts out soon after a British private (I think?) school has had one of its pupils commit suicide.  However, those left behind soon start to realise that the pupil may be dead, but he isn't quite finished with them.

Now, normally I list the plus points of a film and then get on to whatever gripes I have about it.  This time I'm going to do it the other way around.  First of all, as I said, I didn't 'get' what was happening.  Yes, I knew a student had taken his own life, but I couldn't work out who it was supposed to be and his relationship to the cast.  This is because you never see him (alive).  The action picks up after it's all happened.  Fair enough, but I thought it would be more integral to see his interaction with those who he considers to be his 'tormentors.' In fact, I actually thought a boy gets killed in a graveyard near the beginning of the film WAS the boy who everyone spends the rest of the film talking about (hence my need to re-watch the opening).  I guess there's narrative reasons they did it this way, but those fall under 'spoiler territory.'

Secondly - and I hope this isn't a 'spoiler' - this is a 'super-natural' film.  At first I was expecting a 'real' killer, but I guess this area of the plot is foreshadowed by the talk about 'Hamlet' near the start of the film.

So, once I'd accepted how the film-makers were doing this and the 'rules' of the game (so to speak), I actually sat back and quite enjoyed it.  Yes, there are other flaws I could mention - like the 'liberal' school uniform which the pupils seem to be allowed to wear any way they like (especially when it comes to the girls wearing theirs like St Trinians!).  Then you have the cast themselves.  I'm sure the actors are all competent enough, but the fact that every last one is a complete and total stereotype of a modern teenager does kind of grate on you after a while.

I know I'm sounding quite negative, but if you're looking for a gory little slasher film with a supernatural twist then you should enjoy it like I did.  The gore is actually worth waiting for as there's a scene with an eye which really is quite sick (in a well-done special effects kind of way).  Plus there's an undercurrent of dark humour running through this and the gag with the 'badge' made me chuckle long after the film had ended.  Of course this meant that the film veered from horror to comedy without really much warning.  All the actors play it straight, but there's some definite winks to the audience here and there.

'Tormented' is no classic and I doubt will be remembered by anyone, but it is perfectly watchable and if you're a fan of the genre then you could do worse (if you know what you're getting).

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that