Dennis Nielson transplanted to an ultra miserabalist Hackney council estate hardly sounds like riveting entertainment, but Gerard Johnson’s deconstructionalist take on everyday serial killing manages to dig some very black laughs out of the grim setting..
Tony (a perfectly odd Peter Ferdinando) is the type of strange, sad little man you often see wandering round Costcutter, replete with brown puffer coat, weird hairdo and carrier bag.
And a flat full of corpses.
He’s naturally the first suspect when a local child goes missing, and the film makes the most of the irony, Tony getting away with mutilating dozens of victims, but being hounded when he’s falsely accused of paedophilia.
There’s also a touch of urban alienation commentary here, with Tony killing so that he has someone to talk to, propping up bodies and offering them tea in front of the TV – and killing a license inspector who threatens to remove it, while the viewing choice is a selection of 80’s action movies on VHS, a quirky character attribute that shows how far the rest of the world has moved on from this sad little man.
Johnson capably chronicles some of London’s more dead-end areas, with bit parts for the full range of Chavish street life, and tension is kept high as Tony lets plenty of possible victims go, leaving you completely in the dark as to who will be attending a ghoulish night in next, while there’s some great moments of hard-to-watch mundanity – A gay clubber offering sex in exchange for a bed gets a hammer to the forehead when his lame conversation runs out – as he routinely disposes of the bodies of people no one cares about.
The setting is surprisingly realistic given the possibility for melodrama here that brings Mike Leigh to mind, and the whole movie is better for it, uncomfortable but occasionally very amusing against the concrete estate odds. It demystifies its villain, a loner but not a mysterious one, just a boring loser with nothing better to do, Tony is a weird little gem of a movie that grips as strongly as it repels.
2 Comments
Quite a bleak little film, this. Thoroughly enjoyed(?) it – especially as the setting centres on streets I walk every day, living in the area. If I see Tony about by the canal, I promise to push him in.
You’re right about the laughs. It’s the kind of absurd realism that Loach used to deliver, and your Leigh reference is also spot on – echoes of Naked.
It’s Dennis ‘Nilsen’, by the way. Sorry to be picky! Having read Killing For Company, I’m now an armchair expert.
Balls- just as I start getting the hang of spellchecking stuff as well….