Aaaaaaaah! Reveiw

Oh dear, we’ve had to dust off the turkey for this one. It fails to earn even one star.

Aaaaaaaah! was first shown as part of the FrightFest Presents series. It is written and directed by Steve Oram (World’s End, It’s All Gone Pete Tong) and is his directorial debut feature.

This is a very simple (but stupid) premise. What if humans were apes in modern society? Well, clearly modern society wouldn’t exist. So that makes the whole thing redundant straight away.

The film opens with a bizarre scene in a forest, showing disturbing intimacy between two men and more full frontal nudity than strictly necessary. It tells the story of Smith (Oram) an Alpha Male and his Beta, Keith (Tom Meeten – Paddington, Sightseers), who take it upon themselves to move in on another territory.

This takes the form of a house in a nice looking neighbourhood, where a family live together. Putting aside the obvious question of who built the house and indeed the neighbourhood, and the expensive television which apparently humans can’t even plug in let alone invent, we move on to the family. They consist of a teenage girl, Denise (Lucy Honigman – Mr and Mrs Murder), her mother Barbara (Toyah Wilcox – Quadrophenia), her layabout boyfriend and her father who seems to live in the garden.

What follows is a cringeworthy and embarrassing parade of tits, faeces, grunting and knob gags. I have seen this film described as a comedy, but personally I didn’t see anything I found even vaguely amusing. I sort of see what Steve Oram was trying to achieve, but he missed by so much it’s only just visible on the horizon.

There is also no attention to detail whatsoever. Even on a low budget (which I sincerely hope this was) you can make sure that stuff looks the way you want it. The implication was that the ape/humans have their own language, both spoken and written, so all the signs in English saying things like “Diversion Ahead” and a keyhole with Yale written all over it seem somewhat out of place and just further add to the exasperation of the whole thing.

There are special features for those who haven’t lost the will to live during the film, full versions of the two tv shows featured in the film and interviews with the cast, who are a surprisingly familiar bunch.

Noel Fielding also stars in this film, so I suppose if you are into his brand of banal, fantastic humour, then this might appeal, but aside from that I would recommend find something more entertaining to do, like boiling your eyeballs.

Aaaaaaaah! is available to buy now on DVD and Blu-ray