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Coffin Rock

7/10

Stars: Lisa Chappell, Sam Parsonson, Robert Taylor, Jodie Dry, Terry Camilleri, Joseph Del Re, Geoff Morell

Director: Rupert Glasson

The only problem with this well-made, sharply-photographed and quite suspenseful and exciting Australian thriller - a sideshoot from Fatal Attraction - is its basic implausibility.

Fishing-village couple Rob (Taylor) and Jess (Chappell) are, in their mid-thirties, struggling to conceive a child, Quite why Evan (Parsonson), the young Irish receptionist at the IVF centre, would fixate on this quite ordinary woman with a hulking husband is something of a mystery. But then he is a psycho - and a dangerous one at that.

Well, after Jess has a blazing rown with her husband and gets roaring drunk (as you do), the kid gets lucky and Jess gets pregnant. You wonder when hubby will open the slung-away letter that proves/disproves he's infertile, but the story, to its credit, doesn't always choose to go in the way you expect.

Chappell is good, Taylor monolithic and Parsonson, perhaps justifiably, over the top. You'll see everything coming at the end, but it will probably still keep you on the edge of your seat. A Hollywood remake is surely on the cards.

David Quinlan

Australia 2009. UK Distributor: High Fliers. Colour by NanoLab.
89 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 0, Swearing 2.

Review date: 18 Oct 2009