MOTIVATIONAL GROWTH

Ian (Adrian DiGiovanni) is a bearded thirty-something who, he addresses the camera to inform us, has not strayed outside from his apartment for sixteen months. By the looks of it, he hasn't cleaned the place or even bathed himself in that time either.

He festers in his litter-strewn dwelling daily, his only company being Kent - the old CRT television set that has been passed down through his family over the decades.

Then one day, the unthinkable happens: Kent blows up.

Distraught by this turn of events, Ian decides he can no longer bear a life where the highlight of his day is going for a shit. He determines to kill himself. However, concocting a cocktail equivalent of chlorine chemicals in his bathtub to aide his suicide, things go spectacularly wrong for him and he ends up knocking himself out instead. When he awakes, he's laid on the bathroom floor ... and the mould on the wall begins to talk to him.

At first, Ian understandably believes the blow he's suffered to his head has driven him nuts. A visit from his aggressive landlord Box (Pete Giovagnoli) looking for back-payment of rent doesn't help; nor does a creepy TV repair man (Ken Brown) who tries to talk Ian into getting with the times and buying a plasma set, until Ian vomits all over him.

Following these altercations, Ian returns to the bathroom, where the mould (Jeffrey Combs) has gotten more aggressive. It persuades him that he must not open the door to his apartment again.

If all of this sounds a tad bizarre, things are only about to get a whole lot weirder. The mould insists that he can help Ian - if only Ian gives him a week to work his magic on him. Eventually agreeing to undertake the mould's curious form of motivational therapy, Ian is then offered up a strange mushroom-like delicacy from within the mould. Upon eating it, he's propelled into hallucinations that see him trapped within scenes from his favourite trashy TV shows.

Before long, Ian discovers that his regular 18-day delivery of groceries has been completely altered per the mould's instructions. And that's just the beginning, as the mould works on transforming its test subject in a bid to make Ian live his life to the full. This involves him cleaning himself up, tidying his apartment, having a shave and throwing out excess waste.

All of which leads to Ian capturing the attention of the pretty neighbour he's been admiring through a peephole for the last few months: the demure brunette Leah (Danielle Doetsch).

Suddenly Ian's life seems to be back on track for the first time in months. All thanks to the mould. But, of course, such helps comes with its own price attached...

Writer-director-editor Don Thacker's film is an intriguing small-scale triumph. Employing a small but talented cast of quirky, interesting-looking characters and a single-location setting, the great strength of MOTIVATIONAL GROWTH is its snappy, dialogue-heavy screenplay. The script is filled with smart one-liners, the likes of which hark to acerbic classics from the 1980s such as HEATHERS and REPO MAN.

Performance-wise, this is very much a showcase for DiGiovanni - he carries the film for the most part. Though that's not to negate the contribution from Combs, whose voice for the mould (or The Mold, as he's billed) is deep and Elvis-like at times, finding the pitch between sardonic humour and barely restrained menace with considerable skill. Supporting players all make memorable appearances: alongside Giovagnoli and Brown, Hannah Stevenson and Robert Kramer deserve special mentions. Thacker has cast his film very well, understanding that a good movie not only relies on well-written characters but interesting actors to help bring them to life.

In terms of satire, the script alludes to the over-reliance on television and its undeniable influence on everyday life with convincing bitterness. It's also easy to read the mould as a metaphor for the rot so many of us allow to set in to our day-to-day living: Thacker seems to be kicking against the mundane nature of routine.

On another level, Alex Mauer's minimalist electronic score recalls 80s video games and TV shows, while the practical FX work (a good old-fashioned foam latex creation for the mould) brings to mind the works of Frank Hennenlotter (BRAIN DAMAGE, FRANKENHOOKER etc).

It's all a bit weird and consciously "indie", with the focus very much on black comedy of the quirkiest nature. But, come the final act, there is a confrontation dark and bloody enough for this film to qualify as a genre flick.

I'm not sure it has "cult classic" written all over it - it's a little too self-consciously 'clever', from the stylised script to the inventive camerawork and beyond - but it's certainly entertaining and original enough to earn a recommendation.

MOTIVATIONAL GROWTH comes to region-free DVD courtesy of MVD Visual.

It looks very good in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio here. The picture is enhanced for 16x9 TV sets, boasting both rich, warm colours and solid blacks. Flesh tones seem natural; images are crisp and defined without undue enhancement.

English 5.1 audio is impressive, offering a well-balanced and clean playback with equally strong representation of dialogue, sound design and music throughout. Optional English subtitles are also on hand for the Hard-of-Hearing.

The disc loads up to a subtly animated main menu page which, with its crude illustration, garish colours and lo-fi electronic score immediately brings to mind low budget 80s horror a la BASKET CASE.

From there, a static scene selection menu allows access to the film via 10 chapters.

Bonus features commence with an audio commentary track from Combs, Thacker and DiGiovanni. Unsurprisingly, they have great fun chatting through the film. There are lots of anecdotes and titbits of trivia, keeping a little focus on the job at hand and elaborating interestingly on the film's themes and subtexts, while of course descending into chaotic tomfoolery on more than one occasion.

Next up is the film's original 76-second trailer. Offering a mix of comedy and gore without ever really giving too much away, this is tightly edited but perhaps too brief to satisfyingly tantalise. The teaser trailer that follows is, oddly enough, longer (111 seconds) and slightly more insightful as a result. It's also more accurate at conveying the tone of the main feature.

A generous 7-minute gallery of stills and promotional artwork rounds out the extras.

MOTIVATIONAL GROWTH is an interesting, witty and well-conceived low budget film, given a strong DVD release from MVD Visual.

Review by Stuart Willis