Arrow Video Frightfest 2019 Review – Come to Daddy

 

OPENING FILMUK PREMIERE –  COME TO DADDY      Comedy Horror Thriller

Director: Ant Timpson. With: Elijah Wood, Stephen McHattie, Martin Donovan, Michael Smiley. USA/Canada/New Zealand/Ireland. 93 mins.

Norval, played by the increasingly eccentric Elijah Wood, is a delicate hipster musician in his thirties who still lives with his mother. After a mysterious phone call, he decides to pay his estranged father a long-overdue visit. It is not long before he realises his dad is a raging shit bag ex limo driver with a limitless arsenal of C-bombs. But that’s not the worst of it, he also has a past that is about to push poor Norval to the limit of his sensibilities and beyond.

Ant Timpson has delivered a belter of a bad taste buffet in this genuinely funny and often repulsive genre hybrid. Written by Toby Harvard, responsible for the inexorable but brilliant Greasy Strangler, the film crackles along with such irrepressible wit and spiky energy, that you will be swept up by the sheer goofy bravado of it all.

Wood is exceptional as the beleaguered Norval and the rest of the cast give it full throttle as events spiral ever further into the bizarre. Michael Smiley (Kill List) is particularly awesome as the kind of guy who likes to stuff objects up his bottom before stabbing you with them to promote sepsis.

The film is shot with confidence and an eye for the off-kilter whilst the backdrop is a testament to judicious location scouting. The outlandish abode of Norval’s father and the surrounding scenery give real substance and placement to the rambunctious plot.

The tone and pace of Come To Daddy is beautifully judged with some of the most wilfully obscure references ever slapped onto celluloid, alongside some of the most brazenly derivative film references you will ever witness. This is a film that will happily sit a fireside bout of Elton John one-upmanship, next to episodes of traumatic testicular violence. If Tarantino is the D.J. of directors that some suggest, then Timpson is banging out the proper messy beats in the basement bellow.

Bereft of creative boundaries the only filters in operation during Come To Daddy are the ones that remove the grit of boredom.  Gory, left-field and shamelessly entertaining this brilliant genre flick will delight those in search of schlocky midnight thrills, and those seeking cerebral cult craziness.

[rating=5]

Signature Entertainment presents Come to Daddy in early 2020

 


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