TRASHHOUSE

Many thanks to Al for providing me with the opportunity to catch up with Pat Higgins' TRASHHOUSE. I recently interviewed Pat in connection with his highly enjoyable THE DEVIL'S MUSIC but at the time was unfortunately unfamiliar with his previous output. But now I've made a start on the earlier stuff …

From 2005, TRASHHOUSE begins with the onscreen caption "Six months ago". We see two men trembling, guns in hands (one of them is Higgins in a cameo), as they prepare to open a door and unleash whatever it is that is make strange noises from behind it.

Along comes the mysterious Alan (Cy Henty), who takes the guns and opens the door without delay - shooting the creature behind it in the head. Alan makes his way out of the house and calls his colleague, Harris. He tells Harris to arrange for the pace to be cleaned and for all participants to be silenced. He advises that they should find a new location for "next time", and wait six months before trying again.

Six months later, in the present tense, we meet Lucy (Amber Moelter) who turns up at Fallows House with an invitation. Alan answers the door in his trademark sunglasses and invites Lucy in.

Alan introduces the demure Lucy to four strangers, also there upon invitation: Charlotte (Hannah Speller), David (Tom Wontner), Luke (Oli Wilkinson) and James (Richard Collins).

Alan hands each guest a folder documenting their personal details. David kicks off at this being an infringement of their human rights - so Alan quickly sets about explaining what's going on. After revealing that each has £100,000.00 nestled beneath their seats, he shows them a video in which a young lady tells them they have been carefully selected from data information to take part in an experiment. It will involve each having a microchip implanted into their necks, which will read brain signals triggered by dreams and attempt to manifest their dreams in the realms of virtual reality. Or something like that.

Pulled in by the promise of financial reward, the five strangers eventually agree to participate. And once the microchips are surgically installed, each house member (for they must stay at Fallows House to be monitored by CCTV) sets about having dreams that they'd like to see materialise.

For a while, the dreams consist of pretty much predictable things - sexual conquests, someone finding a cure for cancer, lavishing in huge wads of cash etc. But when it transpires that James is a dark-minded person with murderous thoughts, the house becomes a dangerous place to dwell in.

Which pretty much leaves it to Lucy and David to save their own skins from murderers, zombies and monsters with an assorted array of guns, swords and even a chain saw …

Despite its obvious low budget, TRASHHOUSE is a surprisingly sleek and stylish horror film with some inventive camerawork and a keen eye for well-thought-out compositions.

The script (by Higgins) is an amalgamation of ideas that have individually been done to death, but by relying on character-fleshing and a slight sci-fi slant it manages for the most part to make the viewer forget about MY LITTLE EYE etc.

Performances are a mixed bag, which is to be expected at this level of filmmaking. Henty is as impressive here as he was in THE DEVIL'S MUSIC, while Collins steals the show as the obligatory bastard of the piece. Moelter just about copes in the lead, while Wontner unfortunately is less convincing as her partner.

A pounding score that skits mainly between metal and dance beats complements the brisk pacing and slick editing style well, with the odd joke (no matter how lame) helping to punctuate the script and keep it engrossing even when the horror's not apparent.

When the horror comes, Higgins directs with style and energy (considering this is a debut feature made for peanuts, it's highly impressive). There's some half-decent gore too - although the occasional use of CGI (including the final explosion) is ill-advised. Still, although it's crappy in it's execution, you can't knock the filmmakers for their ambition.

I watched TRASHHOUSE on the uncut Screen Entertainment disc. The film was presented in 4:3 Letterbox and looked very good indeed, with sharp detail and good colour and lighting.

The English 2.0 did a good job throughout too.

The film can be accessed via 16 chapters.

Extras on this disc included an enjoyable commentary track from the gracious and endearingly humble Higgins. It's an informative, fluent chat that will no doubt be of great interest to any aspiring independent filmmakers in the UK at the moment.

Next up we get an excellent 46-minute Behind The Scenes documentary. This well-produced effort gives a great insight into the making of the film with cast and crew interviews intercut with plenty of on-set footage.

A 4-minute pre-production "short" is essentially video diary footage of Higgins from 2003 and 2004, speculating on whether his film will get made, followed by some interesting audition footage.

4 minutes of deleted scenes follow, introduced by Higgins. These are followed by a further 5 minutes of outtakes.

"Nick" is an oddly named additional 2 minutes of Behind The Scenes footage, while "Pat's New Film" is 30 seconds of on-set goofing around.

Finally, the disc is rounded off with an incredible 18 trailers for other titles in the Screen Entertainment horror film roster.

So, this is a very belated review of Pat Higgins' TRASHHOUSE to hopefully complement the interview and THE DEVIL'S MUSIC review. As far as feature debuts go, this is a very accomplished and enjoyable one. And it's great to see the likes of Higgins and Henty move from strength to strength in their latest production.

Review by Stu Willis