Siege

The 1983 Canadian film by Paul Donovan and Maura O'Connell starts from a real situation. The police in Halifax are on strike and there is no law in the city; in that vacuum an organised group raids a bar used by gay men and the attack ends in a death. The only witness escapes and takes refuge in a flat, and when the few people there decide to protect him the attackers besiege the building. From that point it becomes a survival story in a confined space, with home-made weapons and traps. It was made cheaply and does not conceal its violence. Taking a hate crime as its direct subject was unusual for the period. Who it's for: viewers who can take independent thrillers of the eighties. Who it's not for: anyone who would rather not approach homophobic violence and graphic scenes; the film shows them openly.