The title of this film, Peppergrass, is rather intriguing, isn’t it? It holds promise; a bit of mystery. Actually, it’s the name of a café belonging to Eula Baek (Chantelle Han); a family legacy that began at her grandfather’s fingertips and is now dangerously close to failing as a business as a result of the Covid pandemic. She has comfort in her plight in the form of fellow bar owner Morris (Charles Boyland), who’s in a similarly bleak situation. So, what to do? Ask the government or bank for help? Nah; let’s find Eula’s Gramps’ old war buddy Reuben, pretend we’re there to give him some medals, then fleece him for his collection of priceless truffles. Sorted.

Or not, as the case may be. Reuben, to give him his proper title, is one Captain Reuben Lom (Michael Copeman), who lives miles away in the arse end of nowhere, and is, according to a token creepy guy the pair meet en route (who gives even creepier directions) not someone to mess about with after dark.

After driving down countless unmade roads, they find themselves stuck in the woods in pitch dark. Eula’s carsick; not helped by the dead fish given to them by creepy guy, along with Morris’ chainsmoking. Added to this discomfort are odd noises and distant music, and then a huge wild boar attacks the car as Morris keeps his nerve by snorting from a large bag of coke, which of course, will solve all their problems.

Reaching Reuben’s cabin there’s some debate over the truffles, and Morris, emboldened by coke, threatens him. This results in he and Eula being wounded (him more so), whereupon she goes off to get the car, leaving him immobile but armed. Weird, tick-tocky music and strange sound effects clearly meant to invoke an unsettling air aren’t enough to save this from wallowing in the sticky mire it finds itself in. Going from a simple snatch’n grab to a full-on wilderness survival melodrama in a very short space of time, there it stays. Directors Steven Garbas and Chantelle Han (scripted by Garbas and Philip Irwin) have the bare bones of a gripper which instead ends up being fleshed out with unnecessary nonsense. A little lost in the woods? Fine. But this goes above and beyond that, with Eula fighting for her life against her own shadow, turning over logs to forage for invertebrates and sprinkling cocaine on a festering foot wound before binding it with makeshift bandages whilst hiding in a foxhole, sniper-wise.

Overdramatic and forging a pathway verging on ludicrous, Eula simply joins the ranks of dozens of other faceless, limping, rifle-toting females that’ve gone before her. Ripley she ain’t, blood-soaked DIY bandages or no; with more focus on character and plot development Peppergrass could’ve been an interesting glimpse into one of the many windows of desperation opened up by the Covid pandemic. Instead, it chooses the easy route, our female lead much confounded, stumbling about woods in the dark, setting fire to anything that burns whilst wandering for an indeterminate time in circles; long enough to begin using SAS-style survival techniques (I mean, how far away could the car possibly be)????