Regular readers will be familiar with my championing of local filmmaking talent here on Merseyside, from Michael J. Long’s Baby Brother (recently out on wide release to great acclaim), to several films by Jack McLoughlin (who’ll soon be making his television debut with Channel 5’s revival of Play for Today). There’s a real hotbed of exciting young talent in this part of the North West, and two names you can add to that roll call are Kyle Brookes and Andrew Games, thanks to their film The Black Rock.

Made for a micro budget of £2,000, and shot on location at Fort Perch, a 200 year old coastal fortress in New Brighton that defended the Port of Liverpool during both world wars, The Black Rock is a tense and atmospheric wartime drama that was written, produced and stars Kyle Brookes. The film tells the story of a very different Second World War where the Battle of Britain ended in defeat, and Operation Sea Lion (the German invasion of England), is occurring in full, destructive force. As the soldiers of the Wehrmacht advance from the south coast, numerous towns and cities fall as resistance to the invaders crumbles and Britain lies on the brink of total occupation as the Nazis enter the North – the region that the government and military top brass has relocated to. In the maelstrom of chaos and devastation, two soldiers from opposite sides find themselves caught in the middle of a sudden bombing raid and are cut off from their respective comrades in the desolate fort.

You have to applaud how shrewd and practical Brookes and director Andrew Games (Dandilicious), have been with such a limited budget. With its stone walls and military architecture, Fort Perch offers an authentic and gritty backdrop that audiences can immediately buy into, but it also lends the film another key ingredient – intimacy. Brookes and Games knew that they couldn’t compete with Hollywood’s large scale spectacle Hollywood like Saving Private Ryan, but realised that two combatants being forced to share physical space in a single location could make just as compelling a statement about war.

Possibly taking inspiration from the shell-hole sequence from All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), and the underground claustrophobia of The Blockhouse (1973), the central premise of The Black Rock is a gripping two-hander that challenges the perspectives of its protagonists, blurring the line between each side. Another part of the narrative takes place in a church in 1983, where the now older Charlie (now played by Martin Riley), seeks absolution from Mike Sweeney-Collier’s priest for his actions during wartime. The events of these two time periods run in tandem in an effort to stir strong emotions and provide food for thought, and having now watched it in the run-up to Remembrance Day, it made for particularly resonant viewing.

A narrative shaped by intimate and dialogue-driven scenes places a great responsibility upon small casts, and the actors here step up to the plate accordingly. Kyle Brookes impresses with a convincing accent as young German soldier Heinrich Gustav Wölf, while Charles Riley performs equally well as Charlie Kemp who, when confronted with the wrong end of a rifle, knows that the key is to talk. Martin Riley brings a vulnerability to the older Charlie Kemp who’s worn down by both guilt and age, while Sweeney-Collier lends suitable mystery to the initially hidden priest, his vocals doing much of the heavy lifting until the film’s satisfying conclusion.

The initially terse and suspicious exchanges between Wölf and Kemp are handled very well, and are combined with a physicality from the actors that enhances how wary and alert they are to each other’s every move, which ratchets up the tension. As time marches on within the confines of the Black Rock’s weathered walls, each soldier’s personal fortress begins to crumble and a human connection is forged from shared experiences – partners and spouses, loss and trauma, hopes and fears, and what it takes for a person to put on a uniform, bear arms, and fight for their country.

Visually, The Black Rock is an impressive work and Games, in his role as both director and cinematographer, achieves much within the cramped conditions of Fort Perch. He leans into the atmospherics of such dark and dank surroundings to place us right in the mix with both protagonists, often to an uncomfortable and claustrophobic degree. Whenever the action steps outside the light invariably floods our senses, though the relief we feel as a result of this sensory-restricted respite is often at odds with the overall narrative context. For example, there are some flashback sequences that relate to Heinrich’s sweetheart Anya (Millie Parker). Shot in a wistful black and white and filmed in a lush meadow, these are beautifully composed by Games and redolent of European cinema such as Edgar Reitz’s work on Heimat, but they are also desperately sad and indicative of the young soldier’s personal trauma and his complicity with his country’s war crimes. It’s the kind of contradiction that ensures audiences of The Black Rock are kept on their toes.

At just sixty minutes and bookended with a poignant interview with WWII veteran John Dennett that speaks to the filmmakers’ respect and commitment to both the era that they are depicting and the generation who sacrificed everything, The Black Rock is a film that is easily worth your time. Though its premise of “what if the Nazis invaded?” is a familiar concept to audiences, I feel that the film’s decision to embrace, rather than avoid, the limitations of a micro-budget has resulted in a different kind of war movie altogether. Be sure to catch it if it plays at a film festival near you, or when it arrives on digital platforms in 2026.

Review by Mark Cunliffe.