The work of Portishead co-founder Geoff Barrow, this sharp-edged though undernourished debut feature casts a critical gaze on 90s rave culture. Self-serving pillhead David (Marc Bessant) first robs an unconscious dealer, then in another flashback tries to burgle his own family home. Before you can say, he's overturned in the wreckage of his car in a forest – and subject to the angry eye of the Woodsman (Sleaford Mods frontman Jason Williamson). Refusing to extricate David, with impatience toward townies, he is a fractured society embodied: “You’re one of those noisy cunts from up on the heath.”
Unsteady Opening and Grimly Amusing Confrontation
Game gets off to a shaky start, spending too long on pedantically chronicling David’s attempt to free himself from his safety harness, while awkwardly transitioning into flashbacks of his everyday life. The bigger point – that the rave-era youth were primarily out for themselves – is firmly made. But these vignettes are insufficiently developed to properly prime us for what to expect when the Woodsman arrives, enraged after David kills his dog. Still, a darkly funny duel unfolds – David desperate to escape; the Woodsman withholding his jerrycan of scrumpy, determined to soaking him instead in embittered discourse. Williamson, projecting ponderous menace in the role, is evocative of Michael Smiley.
Stylish Imagery and Promo-Inspired Sensibility
Just a single key story turn, but it leads to a hilariously staged chaotic run on the forest trails that veers toward folk horror. Filmmaker John Minton at last unleashes with his showy imagery: where he was focused intently doing impressionistic closeups of insects in the light in the early stages, he now goes all out with the full psychedelic grand display, accompanied by a wild organ version of Ravel’s Boléro. The movie resembles an extended promo than a fully fledged drama, but there’s enough strident imagery to suggest that Minton could emulate Jonathan Glazer, Garth Jennings et al into successfully graduating from the UK video industry.
The film releases in UK and Irish cinemas from November 17.
