Dreamscape – Toyah Willcox Fansite

Screen talks to the British actor about his feature directorial debut, which receives its world premiere today [Aug 28] at Film4 FrightFest.

Set to be one of the most original films of this year’s Film4 FrightFest, Aaaaaaaah! is a twisted family drama with a difference: there is no dialogue, with all actors speaking in animalistic grunts and moans.

It marks the feature directorial debut of British actor Steve Oram who, along with Alice Lowe, wrote and starred in Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers.

Aaaaaaaah!, produced by Lincoln Studios, receives its world premiere today [Aug 28] and Oram believes FrightFest is the ideal place for the film to make its bow.

“FrightFest accepts and celebrates the weirdos, and we think we fit in quite well there,” enthuses Oram. “It’s the perfect showcase for us. It’s totally un-snooty and just about people who love strange films and horror films. It’s a big opportunity to show it to the people, which is all I care about really.”

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Dir/Scr. Steve Oram. UK, 2015, 79 mins.

In its enthusiasm for poo-flinging, food-fights, penis-chewing, cannibalism, tea-bagging and sudden stabbings, the film sets out to shock in a particularly cosy way

Inhabiting a waste ground somewhere between radical theatre and slob comedy, Steve Oram’s debut as a writer-director-star – following up his writer-actor work on Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers – is liable to corner a small but devoted cult following. It’s at least as interested in gross-out gags that out-gross the average Hollywood frat-boy film as it is in delivering a skewed yet pointed look at a suburban Britain where everyone communicates in grunts and gestures the way cavemen and women do in Hammer Fillms’ well-remembered prehistoric adventure films (One Million Years BC, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth).

AAAAAAAAH!’s specific precedents might include such one-offs as Richard Lester’s post-apocalyptic The Bed-Sitting Room, Akira Kurosawa’s rubbish-strewn Dodes’ka-den or Claude Faraldo’s Parisian troglodyte drama Themroc, but it’s fresh, distinctive and strange enough on its own and tight enough at 79 minutes not to outwear its welcome.

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Icon, FrightFest confirm first films for new genre label

The Sand and Aaaaaaaah! among first FrightFest Presents acquisitions.

UK distributor Icon Film Distribution and UK horror festival FrightFest have set the first films to be released under their FrightFest Presents banner.

The films will premiere at FrightFest, which gets underway in London on Thursday (Aug 27), before unspooling online between October and February 2016. Digital partners will include iTunes, Virgin Movies, Sky, Google Amazon, Xbox , Blinkbox, Google, Wuaki, TalkTalk and Volta.

Among the first batch of titles is Sightseers actor-writer Steve Oram’s surreal ‘monkey comedy’ Aaaaaaaah!, which Icon will release online this October.

Oram stars alongside Noel Fielding (The Mighty Boosh), Alice Lowe (Sightseers), Lucy Honnigman (The Ex-PM), Julian Rhind-Tutt (Lucy), Julian Barratt (The Mighty Boosh) and Toyah Willcox (Quadrophenia) in the story of a tribe of warring ‘monkeys’.

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The 16th edition of genre film festival unveils full line-up.

Film4 FrightFest will mark its 16th edition with its largest line-up ever, showcasing 76 films across five screens at the Vue West End in Leicester Square from Aug 27-31.

This year’s line-up features 20 world premieres, a record-breaking 16 European premieres and 26 UK premieres, with 18 countries represented. In addition, there will be a further ‘Discovery’ strand at The Prince Charles Cinema, marking a return to the festival’s original home.

World premieres at this year’s FrightFest include Paul Hyett’s creature feature Howl, anthology A Christmas Horror Story, Steve Oram’s comedy Aaaaaaaah! and Liam Regan’s revenge thriller Banjo, while European premieres include Ben Cresciman’s Sun Choke, Paz Brothers’ Jeruzalem and Adam Mason’s Hangman.

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