Aaaaaaaah!

Dir: Steve Oram

2015

****

I have to say I'm really happy for Steve Oram, he's a brilliant writer/performer and what he has achieved in his directional debut, on a shoe-string budget, is applaudable, whether you like the film or not. Have you ever imagined a world whereby everything is the same, except people act like apes rather than humans? No, neither have I but thank goodness Oram has. In showing people acting as apes in everyday life Oram actually blurs the line between the two. Oram and his fellow actors have clearly studied the behavior of apes in their natural environments and when applied to a human context, the similarities are eerily similar. This is very much a comedy, with a slice of horror you could say, and very much a social satire. A sure-fire cult film. I wasn't surprised to see the likes of Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding in the cast given the idea and the previous collaborations they and Oram have had in the past but the inclusion of Toyah Wilcox was a little bit of a surprise I must admit. It does feel like an actors workshop exercise in body language at times but each performer is brilliant, particularly the performances from Wilcox and Lucy Honigman. When Oram compares every day activities with our primal instincts he makes a clear and clever point but when he shows the primitive nature of our relationships, thought process, recreational activity and what we class as entertainment he highlights how funny and ridiculous we really are, which will make you laugh initially and then disturb you to the very core. In this respect the title is quite apt, as this is what you will want to shout when you release this isn't much of an experiment in other dimensional realities, this is pretty much the way it is and actually it's bloody frightening. However, there is a scene in which one of the ape men is watching an ape man sitcom, we see the simple exploits of the primitive ape man as he stumbles and nearly falls off his chair (played brilliantly by Tony Way) and I couldn't help but think it was funny, even though it wasn't funny, even though it was funny. It was the comedy version of looking into a mirror when there is a mirror behind you and your reflection goes into infinity. Very simple ideas but quite profound at the same time, I guess satire is really the only difference between us and the apes.