Straightheads aka Closure

Gillian Anderson and Danny Dyer in Straightheads

Yet another Danny Dyer movie in which he plays a flaky spliffer. And another, like Outlaw, in which he’s involved in vigilantism of a particularly unpleasant sort. This one, though, co-stars Gillian Anderson as the posh totty Dyer ends up bedding after installing CCTV equipment at her pad. And then, after she’s invited him out to a party at a swish country house, the pair are set upon on the drive back to town. He is horribly beaten up, she is brutally raped. But hang on – Danny Dyer? Gillian Anderson? No, it doesn’t seem right somehow but Anderson has a habit of turning up in some odd corners. And in Straightheads actually work … Read more

What Is an Aseptic White Room Thriller?

Julian Richings in Cube

The simple answer to the question “what is an aseptic white room thriller” (AWRT) is Cube, Vincenzo Natali’s cult Canadian sci-fi movie from 1997. More abstractly, it’s a film that takes place on a single set, usually white though not necessarily. Lighting will be clean, clinical, fairly devoid of shadow. Soundtrack music will be scarce or absent. As for sound design, a background hum of air-conditioning is standard. Clanking, the whooshing of doors, “noises off”. It’s the plot that is most definitive. In the AWRT no one really knows what’s going on. Typically the film opens with the characters who don’t know each other waking up somewhere far from home, to find that … Read more