Produced by Bristol sound co-founder the musician-producer, this scabrous if slight debut feature casts a critical gaze on 90s rave culture. Self-serving drug user David (the actor) first robs an passed-out supplier, then in another flashback tries to break into his own parents. In no time, he's upside down in the wreckage of his car in a forest – and subject to the angry eye of the Poacher (vocalist Jason Williamson). Declining to free David, with impatience toward city dwellers, he is broken Britain embodied: “You’re one of those loud individuals from up on the heath.”
A Shaky Start and Grimly Amusing Confrontation
The film begins uncertainly, spending too long on meticulously detailing David’s attempt to extricate himself from his safety harness, while clumsily segueing into flashbacks of his everyday life. The central theme – that the rave-era youth were mainly focused on themselves – is firmly made. But these brief episodes are insufficiently developed to properly prime us for what to expect when the Woodsman arrives, fuming after David strangles his dog. Nevertheless, a grimly amusing standoff unfolds – David desperate to escape; the Woodsman denying his container of cider, determined to soaking him instead in resentful talk. Williamson, exuding heavy threat in the role, is evocative of Michael Smiley.
Visual Flair and Promo-Inspired Sensibility
There is only one important plot development, but it leads to a hilariously staged rampage on the forest trails that veers toward rural terror. Filmmaker John Minton finally gets to go all in with his ostentatious visuals: where he was focused intently doing impressionistic closeups of bugs in headlights in the opening part, he now goes all out with the full lysergic grand display, accompanied by a frenzied keyboard rendition of Ravel’s Boléro. The movie resembles an elongated music video than a fully fledged drama, but there’s enough strident imagery to suggest that Minton could follow Jonathan Glazer, Garth Jennings et al into successfully graduating from the UK video industry.
Game releases in British and Irish theaters from 17 November.
