PLAYHOUSE PRESENTS - THE SNIPIST (2012)
COMEDY SHORTS - SMUTCH (2016)
COMEDY SHORTS - SMUTCH (2016)
Payback doesn't come harder-boiled than Terry
Finch (Matthew Holness) in A GUN FOR GEORGE.
THE three shorts under consideration here are all written and directed by Matthew Holness, best known for creating the faux horror author Garth Marenghi (a character so pompous that when he contemplates praying, he prays to himself). Made by Warp in conjunction with Film4 and the UK Film Council, A GUN FOR GEORGE is a gritty change of pace for Holness, who also stars as Terry Finch, an unsuccessful writer of pulp-fiction crime novels. Via flashback, it's shown that his twin brother George was killed by carjackers. Living in a caravan near a power station, Terry attempts to cope with his setbacks by imagining himself as the character in his Reprisalizer novels, a Kent-based vigilante who ultimately acts as a form of retribution for his beloved sibling. When elderly ex-Policeman and fan Ron (Joseph Bailey) dies, Ron leaves Terry his flat, where a gun is discovered in a concealed cash box.
Running seventeen minutes, this technically impressive piece recreates the feel of 1970s grindhouse, and is a potential DEATH WISH for the Home Counties. It also contains a fake trailer that is as pitch perfect as BITCH KILLER, Holness and Richard Ayoade's counterfeit horror film teaser from their underappreciated spoof chat show MAN TO MAN WITH DEAN LEARNER. The death of George has frozen Finch in time; also Terry cannot accept that tastes have changed, where libraries have moved on from stocking westerns and men's action stories. Finchland is where fantasy and reality merge, and we leave the character as an extremely dangerous one.
Douglas Henshall is THE SNIPIST, a short which confirmed Holness' aspiration to become a filmmaker removed from his comedic origins.
Holness' twenty-six minute entry for Sky Arts' PLAYHOUSE PRESENTS, THE SNIPIST depicts a dystopian Britain stricken by rabies. Harker (Douglas Henshall) is a lone sniper struggling to maintain his sanity, ruled over by the Ministry of Information (voiced by John Hurt). Ordered to watch and protect stranded survivors, the Snipist monitors an injured woman (Kate O'Flynn) in a farmhouse, whose arm wound may be from the surrounding barb wire or the onset of the disease. The climax makes Harker - and the viewer - question what we are actually experiencing: is this a training exercise, or the workings of an unhinged mind?
Holness has acknowledged 1970s Public Information Films deeply affected him growing up, as THE SNIPIST opens with an alarmingly effective imitation rabies PIF; we are constantly told that "It is your fault, you allowed rabies in Britain, you are to blame,” made even more potent by Hurt, who also provided the ominous chords behind the actual 1980s AIDS Don’t Die of Ignorance campaign. Henshall gives a suitably haunted performance, mixing fear for his own survival with the overall desolation.
"Rest in piss;" Holness plays Oswin Tow in SMUTCH,
SMUTCH, an eleven minute Sky Arts COMEDY SHORT, follows Oswin Thaddeus Tow (Holness), an embittered author who has just written his masterpiece, A Shiver at Blandwood. Tow drinks green tea for its hallucinogenic properties to aid the artistic process, but this causes regular urination. When he desecrates on the grave of Smutch - who was an aspiring writer - a black stain appears on his manuscript, and strange messages appear. His photographer Keene (Jim Howick) is accidently killed by the toxicity of his urine mixing with developing chemicals, but Father Fenton (Clive Merrison) is "sucked inside out" by the otherworldly Smutch, as Oswin himself succumbs to an M. R. Jamesian-type demise. With a knowing nod to the British horror fascination with magnifying glasses, it's all a lark, though peeing makes for a rather one-note foundation.
a self-important author who literally encounters a ghost writer.
SMUTCH, an eleven minute Sky Arts COMEDY SHORT, follows Oswin Thaddeus Tow (Holness), an embittered author who has just written his masterpiece, A Shiver at Blandwood. Tow drinks green tea for its hallucinogenic properties to aid the artistic process, but this causes regular urination. When he desecrates on the grave of Smutch - who was an aspiring writer - a black stain appears on his manuscript, and strange messages appear. His photographer Keene (Jim Howick) is accidently killed by the toxicity of his urine mixing with developing chemicals, but Father Fenton (Clive Merrison) is "sucked inside out" by the otherworldly Smutch, as Oswin himself succumbs to an M. R. Jamesian-type demise. With a knowing nod to the British horror fascination with magnifying glasses, it's all a lark, though peeing makes for a rather one-note foundation.