Dreamscape – Toyah Willcox Fansite

Another short interview with Toyah from the Aaaaaaaah! premiere at FrightFest 2015 a couple of weeks ago. This one by Red Carpet News TV.

A final couple of Aaaaaaaah! reviews. See a selection of the recent opinion pieces on the film here.

• Little White Lies: Aaaaaaaah! Review: Actor Steve Oram has decided to make a movie, and the results are spectacularly disturbing… Let’s not mince words: Steve Oram is a master filmmaker. He’ll be known to British audiences for his co-starring role in Ben Wheatley’s 2012 comedy-horror hybrid, Sightseers, in which he played one half of an oddball twosome traversing the English countryside and who take a hatchet to the skull of anything or anyone that doesn’t chime with their quaint Midlands sensibilities. Aaaaaaaah! is his debut feature film as writer and director, a transgressive situationist comedy which is also one of the great British films of the new millennium. Explaining why is not going to be easy – Continue reading…

• Methods Unsound: Best of Film4 FrightFest 2015: Most Balls Out Insane Film: So let’s get to the heart of the matter, horror is often about extremes both visually and thematically, what was the most fucked up thing on offer? Aaaaaaaah! directed by Sightseer’s Steve Oram… The bluntness of the bestial activities throughout would be depraved and shocking in any other film but here they push up against human norms creating situations that are just hilariously surreal, such as Toyah Wilcox having a heart to heart with her daughter in grunts as she takes a shit on the kitchen floor – Continue reading…

Premiere Scene’s Alice Alexander and Anthony Bueno interview Toyah Willcox, Julian Rhind-Tutt, and Lucy Honigman for Aaaaaaaah! Screening at Film 4 FrightFest 2015.

• The Ooh Tray: Monkey Business: Note: An ape translation of this review is available – Were it not for an ingenious comic conceit, Steve Oram’s highly original comic melodrama would be a familiar story. A man splits from his wife, meets a woman at a party, trapped in an unhappy relationship, and the two decided to make a run for it and get married, returning to the home and kicking out the ineffectual boyfriend. But in Aaaaaaaah!‘s universe, human language and instinct haven’t evolved beyond that of primates, and consequently you have an eccentric and often brutally honest comedy that lays bare the base instincts and absurd animal behaviour that fundamentally characterises human relationships – Continue reading…

• Screen Relish: #F4FF15 FrightFest: Aaaaaaaah! Review: Aah, the precarious position of the alpha male. Oh should I say AAAAAAAAH!? Because that is the delightfully appropriate title of Steve Oram’s feature directorial debut. An absurd horror comedy, the film offers no dialog at all – just grunts, as humans, devolved into ape mentality, go about their poop-throwing, territory marking, television smashing daily existence. It’s the kind of overly clever premise you expect to wear thin, but honestly, it doesn’t. Much credit goes to a game cast (including Oram) that sells every minute of the ridiculousness, and to Oram again as director. He keeps the pace quick, his images a flurry of insanity you need to see more than once to fully appreciate – Continue reading…

• I’m With Geek: Aaaaaaaah! – Review: Written and directed by Steve Oram (the genius writer behind Sightseers), Aaaaaaaah! is a movie not to be missed. If you like a little strange in your life then this film is absolutely for you. Premiering at Film4 Frightfest last night, some are steal wrapping their heads around the weird and wondering movie. The struggle here, is giving Aaaaaaaah! the review it deserves… – Continue reading…

A brilliant photo from last night, tweeted by Toyah this morning: “My first Premiere in Leicester Square was fabulous. Thank you to everyone at @Film4FrightFest“. (Photo © Toyah Willcox)

Browse a gallery of great photos, including a number of Toyah, from last night’s Aaaaaaaah! premiere at FrightFest 2015 at Contact Music. (Photos © Contact Music)

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.

• Continue reading at Screen Daily.

Film4 FrightFest tweeted this great photo from last night’s premiere: Aaaaaaaah! Cast and crew go Ape on the media wall. (Photo © Film4 FrightFest)

• Cine Vue: Steve Oram’s directorial debut, Aaaaaaaah! (2015), comes on like a collaboration between Dogme ’95 and Chris Morris. It’s hard to think of another film closely like it in British cinema. It really is that out-there and singular. You can bet your bottom dollar on Aaaaaaaah! becoming a cult oddity in years to come, but it’s equally fair to say that the general cinema-going audience would be left nonplussed. It’s an experimental work for the arthouse crowd, certainly, but it’s also one of the funniest and most poignant movies of the year – Continue reading…

• Nerdly: Aaaaaaaah! is a film that defies easy categorisation, not to mention pronunciation. It is set in a fictionalised London that looks and operates much like the one we know – except all of its inhabitants communicate purely through animalistic grunting, whooping and mewling. Everyone understands each other (more or less) within the film but the audience is left to figure out the subtext through the actors’ onscreen actions, most of which are violent or hyper-masculine in nature – Continue reading…

• The Velvet Onion: One of the things that distinguishes the artists that we write about at The Velvet Onion is their ability to think differently and to make waves in a sea of entertainment mediocrity. At their best, they conjure up ideas and dream of worlds so creatively vibrant that they force us, the audience, into a different headspace ourselves. In this respect, Steve Oram‘s AAAAAAAAH! (always written with eight ‘A’s) totally nails it – Continue reading…

• Flickering Myth: Aaaaaaaah! is a bizarre choice for a directorial debut, but I can guarantee, hand on heart, you have never seen a film like this in your life. And more likely, you never will either. Due to its incredibly bonkers nature, Aaaaaaaah! is destined to become a cult classic in the same vein as Pink Flamingos, but it won’t appease anyone. It will be very interesting to see the reaction to the movie coming off the back of its debut at FrightFest, that’s for damn sure – Continue reading…

• Movie Ramblings: Once part of the psychopathic duo in Sightseers (Ben Wheatley, 2012), Steve Oram makes his directorial debut with the barmy concept that is AAAAAAAAH! Presented as “Romero and Juliet meets Planet of the Apes”, the bizarre narrative sees 80s queen Toyah Willcox star along side Boosh boys Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt, with Green Wing’s Julian Rhind-Tutt – Continue reading…

Human beings have the same violent tribal urges as wild apes in this surreal horror comedy, the directing debut of British actor and screenwriter Steve Oram.

An outlandish blend of wacko sci-fi horror and grotesque comedy, this low-budget British oddity will divide critics, but it should pick up a devoted following among fans of macabre, surreal, cheerfully disgusting cult cinema. The feature-directing debut of its writer and co-star Steve Oram, AAAAAAAAH! takes place in a contemporary London where humans behave like wild apes, speaking only in simian grunts as they masturbate, defecate, urinate, copulate and engage in deadly tribal rivalries. Vulgar and violent and intermittently hilarious, Oram’s uncompromising experiment in arty trash has its world premiere this weekend as part of Frightfest in London.

• Continue reading at The Hollywood Reporter.

Film4 FrightFest has returned for more macabre mayhem. The 5 day residency at the Vue West End, Leicester Square marks its 16th year with its biggest line-up to date. From Thurs 27th August to Mon 31st August, the UK’s leading event for horror genre fans returns to present 76 films across five screens, plus a host of other special events.

There are eighteen countries representing 5 continents with a record-breaking 16 European premieres and 26 UK premieres. In addition, there is a further ‘Discovery’ strand at The Prince Charles Cinema, signalling a welcome return to FrightFest’s spiritual home.

The festival kicks off with David Keating’s Cherry Tree, there is the world premiere of Steve Oram’s hilarious and very disturbing AAAAAAAAH!.

• Continue reading at Entertainment Focus. Click below for full details on FrightFest 2015.

This month’s Total Film magazine includes a small photo of Toyah (yes, the now almost legendary shot of her with that frying pan) and article on Aaaaaaaah! on their “agenda” page feature on FrightFest 2015 – the film festival which began today in London.

FrightFest 2015 offers 75 horror movies in five days! Here are a few that are making Agenda’s spine tingle…

We know Steve Oram can do weird, wild and wonderful – with Alice Lowe, he wrote and starred in Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers – but his directorial debut is a different kettle of fish altogether. Or make that barrel of monkeys, because the cast (Noel Fiedling, Toyah Willcox, Oram, Lowe…) communicate only with ape-noises in this bizarre talke of the battle to take over a community. Proof that human beings really are animals.

• View a larger version of the scan here. (Thanks to Lärwi, of The Toyah Willcox Interview Archive, for the scan)

– Aaaaaaaah! premieres at FrightFest tomorrow evening, with Toyah, Steve Oram and the cast in attendance, and also participating in a Q&A session.

Icon Film Distribution (IFD) and FrightFest have announced the first films which will be released under the curated banner FrightFest Presents.

The seven titles selected will all have their UK theatrical premieres at the FrightFest five day festival in August at the Vue Leicester Square and represent some of the most exciting genre filmmakers working today.

The exclusive Icon and FrightFest partnership, first announced in April, will see titles released across the UK and Ireland via the distributor’sdigital partners (including iTunes, Virgin Movies, Sky, Google Amazon, Xbox , Blinkbox, Google, Wuaki, TalkTalk and Volta) giving film fans instant access to some of their favourite FrightFest titles.

FrightFest Presents launches officially on 19 October with a consumer campaign pushing out from the beginning of the month. Each release has the collective backing of IFD and FrightFest across all marketing, PR and social channels.

The seven titles to be released under FrightFest Presents are: AAAAAAAAH!, The Sand, Afterdeath, Landmine Goes Click, Emelie, The Lesson and Estranged.

• Continue reading at the Horror Channel.

Ten Unmissable Horrors From This Year’s Festival

FrightFest founder and co-director Alan Jones picks his top ten movies showing at this year’s festival. Tickets are on sale now here and the festival runs at Vue Leicester Square from 27 – 31 August

AAAAAAAAH!: If you liked actor Steve Oram in the quirky comedy thriller Sightseers, chances are you’ll adore his directorial debut, bound to become the cult film of this year and many more to come. Original to the point of WTF, imagine future humanity regressing to ape-like behaviour and put under a wildlife documentary microscope. Dialogue-free and featuring a game cast of Oram’s best mates – including Toyah Willcox, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Noah Fielding and Alice Lowe – this is terrifyingly funny, deeply offensive hilariously sick and unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. David Attenborough, eat your heart out!

• Continue reading at VUE.

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’.

• Continue reading at Screen Daily.

Sightseers co-writer and star Steve Oram delivers his demented directorial debut AAAAAAAAH! at FrightFest this Friday 28th August. The mad as a plate of badgers, monkey horror/ sci-fi hybrid previews in Discover Screen 1 with Steve, Toyah Willcox and other cast members due to attend.

With stateside screening dates booked, AAAAAAAAH! looks to destined for cult status and is sure to set Steve on a path to greater film-making opportunities. We chatted to Steve about AAAAAAAAH!’s inception and production along with the state of modern indie cinema and the secrets to mining comedy genius.

How do you pronounce the title is it AAAAAAAAH!?
However you want, I will leave that to the viewer. You can say it like AAAAAAAAH! or AAAAAAAAH! or AAAAAAAAH! Many variations. Multi.

How did you come up with such a warped idea? Did it evolve from something else or was it more of a light-bulb moment?
It’s something that has always fascinated me: how ape-like we all are and yet we rarely reference it in our every-day lives. I’ve always been a big fan of Planet of the Apes and did a short film with the same concept a couple of years ago. So I guess it grew from there.

Was it an easy casting process?
I always had a few names in mind: the two Julians (Rhind-Tutt and Barratt), Tom Meeten but Toyah Willcox I wasn’t expecting, I just sent her the script which she loved and was very enthusiastic about. I think if you tell an actor they have to do run around being a monkey, they’ll probably do it. They love that sort of shit.

The soundtrack to AAAAAAAAH! was pretty amazing. As a musician, did you have much involvement?
The main person who provided the soundtrack was Robert Fripp who donated a largely improvised album to us to use however we wanted. So that’s all just the genius of Robert really. I did most of the shit stuff that sounded like an ape made it.

• Continue reading at HeyUGuys.

Aaaaaaaah! has its world premiere at FrightFest 2015 on Friday 28th August at VUE West End, Leicester Sq (with a Director/Cast Q&A, including Toyah). It will also show at Picture House Central, London on Friday 4th September (this also has a Q&A which includes Toyah), End Of The Road Festival, Dorset on Saturday 5th September and Mayhem Film Festival, Nottingham which runs between 15th – 18th October. Director Steve Oram will also participate in Q&As at these two festival screenings. There is also the, just announced, LA premiere (see below)

FrightFest said: “Oh, and wait until you see Steve (SIGHTSEERS) Oram’s AAAAAAAAH!, which we guarantee will World Premiere to a sea of open-mouthed astonishment.”

“Genuinely excited that (and my goodness she’s great in the film!) @toyahofficial will be in attendance for our AAAAAAAAH! World Prem!” Film4 FrightFest @ Twitter.

The excitement is mounting…. As we’ve mentioned previously, Aaaaaaaah!, the new film by Steve Oram, which features a bevy of TVO faces, will be getting its world premiere next month at Film 4 FrightFest at Leicester Square! But for those of you who can’t make it there, don’t despair – because the film may be coming to a screen near you!

Additional screenings of Aaaaaaaah! include:

Picture House Central in London’s West End on 4th September (+ cast Q&A); End of the Road Festival (Dorset), 4th-6th September; Mayhem in Nottingham, 15-18 October. Plus more dates to be announced soon.

• Continue reading at The Velvet Onion. Details of further screenings of Aaaaaaaah! will be available here.

• Classic Hits: Genesis Keyboardist Tony Banks Says New Solo Box Set Features “a Lot of Good Music”: Banks worked with a variety of well-known musicians on his solo albums, including such singers as ex-Marillion frontman Fish, Nik Kershaw and Toyah Willcox, and acclaimed drummers like Steve Gadd, Vinnie Colaiuta and longtime Genesis touring member Chester Thompson – Continue reading…

• Nerdly: Frightfest 2015: First look at Steve Oram’s ‘Aaaaaaaah!’: The debut feature of actor Steve Oram (Sightseers, TV’s Glue), Aaaaaaaah! stars Julian Barratt, Toyah Willcox, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Steve Oram, Lucy Honigman, Tom Meeten and Sean Reynard. The supporting cast include Noel Fielding, Holli Dempsey, Shelley Longworth, Alice Lowe, Tony Way and Waen Shepherd. Aaaaaaaah!, written and directed by Steve Oram, produced by Andy Starke and executive produced by Ben Wheatley, will have it’s world premiere at FrightFest on August 28th with many of the cast and crew in attendance. A few tickets are still available www.frightfest.co.uk – Continue reading…

• Get Reading: Famous faces spotted at Rewind Festival over the years: Rewind South: The 80s Festival, which attracts 40,000 fans each year, will return to Temple Island Meadows on Friday, August 21, to Sunday, August 23… Toyah Willcox at Rewind 2011 – Continue reading…

• Eastbourne Herald: Eastbourne gets ready for Vulcan’s swan-song at Airbourne: at the Bandstand, evening concerts include Big Band Night on Thursday and the legendary pop-punk princess Toyah, on Friday. BBC South East Today also broadcast live from the show from 6.30pm on Friday, as their Festival Friday tour hits town – Continue reading…

• The Toyah Willcox Interview Archive: Read full transcripts of Toyah’s recent interviews on BBCR2’s Sounds Of The 80s and BBC Radio Derby – Go read…

News on Aaaaaaaah!, from Ransom Note, which also includes some info on where you’ll be able to see the film, over the next couple of months, after it premieres at FrightFest 2015..

Aaaaaaaah! is Steve Oram’s directional debut starring Julian Barrett, Toyah Wilcox, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Steve Oram, Lucy Honigman, Tom Meeton, Noel Fielding and Sean Reynard. Aaaaaaaah! (think this is the right amount of A’s, I’m not entirely sure, my glasses aren’t quite the right prescription… Sorry…) is a story about two men, primal and caveman-ish, who plan on taking over a local community. They hook up with restless female, Denise, which brings boiling emotion in the sense of fueds and grudges to take the high ground. The film raises the question: are we men or beasts? The entire cast speaks not in prose but in grunts and jibberish – just because we have a language, does that mean we have discarded or ancestial traits? Well Aaaaaaaah! attempts to cross the barrier and make us think about human life and evolution all at the same time.

Aaaaaaaah! will be touring around the country, the world premiere is at FrightFest on the 28th of August, Picture House Central on 4th September where it will have a residency and the film will call on to End of the Road Festival from the 4th to the 6th of September and Mayhem, Nottingham from the 15th to the 18th of October. More dates will be announced soon.

• Continue reading at Ransom Note.