The Doom Busters (2025) Review

The year is 1940. Arthur Roundtree (Tom Bailey) and the other young men of Bramble Ridge Home Guard HQ yearn for a proper wartime mission other than being sidelined in their quiet area of the countryside and seeking out scarecrows dressed as Nazis in seemingly pointless exercises organised by the local Zone Commander (Maureen Bennett) who also happens to be Arthur’s gran. However, when a craft crashes on the outskirts of the village, Arthur and fellow misfits William (Timothy Renouf) and Harold (Oscar Meyrick) are tasked with not only saving their idyllic surrounding but possibly the entire galaxy. It’s far worse than “a pissed off badger” as William suggests early on…

From the team that brought us Here Comes Hell, a fun ride which brought demonic activity and monochromatic splatter to those 1930s old dark house horror tropes, The Doom Busters wanders a handful of years further down the historical track – and moves into the colour era – to deliver a micro-budgeted cross between Dad’s Army and Predator, complete with creature’s POV and blood splashing the English woodland instead of a Central American rainforest.

The first act sticks the monster on the back burner after, save for a couple of offscreen kills, in order to spend time with our loveable group of misfits. Arthur’s biggest battle, at least on first glance, appears to be with his asthma first and the withering remarks of would-be fighter pilot William, injured when some idiot accidentally shot him in the foot. Harold, meanwhile, moons over can-do local lass Edith (Jessica Webber) and dreams about having her accompany him to the village dance. The humour’s fairly gentle and the whole thing looks like it’s going to be rather pleasingly daft until…

…until the extra-terrestrial menace starts ripping chunks out of everything in its path and these innocent, harmless folks to which we’ve become quite attached are put in genuine peril and the jokes give way to an unexpected serious of emotional punches. Not since I inadvertently yelled out as an alien bug sneaked up on Dina Meyer in Starship Troopers – and gave the strangers next to me in the cinema a proper laugh – has the potential demise of a character given me such cause for alarm.

It’s the mix of cosy and chilling that proves a winning formula for The Doom Busters. The resources to hand may not provide blazing action every five minutes but various plot wrinkles keep matters interesting, such as Chekhov’s UXB and the appearance of initially taciturn, WWII glam nurse Gail Haywood (Margaret Clunie) who wields a mean machine gun and whose brusque manner immediately gives our ragtag band of heroes cause to suspect that she’s hiding something. Spoiler: she is hiding something and the imaginative reveal made me laugh a lot.

Elsewhere, there’s a stop off to call upon the services of local hermit Harry The, er, Hermit, played by veteran actor Philip Whitchurch (I still remember him from TV sitcom The Brothers McGregor when I was much, much younger) in a standout, four-letter word peppered turn which allows a brief breather from the monster hunt, provides vital exposition for the final stanza and works as its own bizarre mini sketch. Harry’s sweary answer to those showing up at his door is like much of the comedy in The Doom Busters – it might not be subtle, but it’s often funny.

Mixing its sci-fi inflected gore with some quintessentially British wartime staples, such as the mandatory spiv selling underwear out of a case, this is as much of an unashamed genre blender as Here Comes Hell and, in a similar way, relies on its undoubted charm to lead the audience along in the first half before switching gears to confront the viewer with the fact that this is war and there will probably be casualties. Even so, writer/director Jack McHenry is careful not to lose sight of the inherent wackiness of the story and chucks in a highly amusing last act twist, where someone shows themselves to be a proper bad ‘un and the movie’s single, perfectly aimed c-bomb is deployed.

For some, The Doom Busters may seem ultimately inconsequential and anyone hankering for an eighty-minute smackdown may find it difficult to be disarmed by it. However, I’d take this over an empty, glossy, po-faced, line ‘em up, shoot ‘em down flick any day of the week. This is movie making with heart, assembled by folks who genuinely care what’s up on the screen and know that throwing money at a project is no substitute for good ideas and engaging characters. And, in classic Seventies, small screen Britcom tradition, it all closes with “You have been watching….” Are we being served? That’s a resounding yes.

Movie Rating:

The Doom Busters trailer