‘Martin, for all his machinations and magic realism, is equally mundane. He is, however, the catalyst for everything that goes wrong and, in doing so, throws buckets of emotion over those he meets. He might be a potential evil wizard, but he brings Steven and his family out of themselves. They become less guarded, less particular in what they say. One sibling requests – actually begs – to have the iPod of the other when they die. It’s not done so they can have a keepsake, it’s so they can have an iPod. Along with this previously untapped emotion and selfishness comes unbridled violence, which Martin is more than happy to inflict on himself if it makes Steven happy. Steven is the new patriarchy after all, and Martin wants to love him as much as he wants to smash him.’
Released in 1990, Prayer of the Rollerboys is a strange beast. A starring vehicle for Corey Haim, it’s a mishmash of tone and contains regular reminders that its director, Rick King, and screenwriter, W. Peter Iliff would go on to work on the screenplay for Point Break.
Set in the what-is-now-not-so-distant future, America has been on its knees for so long, it’s down to its bones. The country’s economy has collapsed and it’s effectively become one big war zone. Filled with poverty, crime and political infighting, the country has left itself open for others to come in and make a tidy profit. Case in point, Japan now owns the ten top US universities and has moved them brick by brick to their own borders. Into this political unrest comes the Rollerboys, a youth movement built to support troubled teens caught in the crossfire of day to day life. Led by the extremely mulleted Gary Lee (Christopher Collet, Sleepaway Camp), the Rollerboys is in fact a white supremacy group (Gasp!) that feeds off the paranoia and displacement of those it takes in.
They also like to rollerblade in unison.
Like, all the time.
If you didn’t think you could goosestep in skates, then allow Prayer of the Rollerboys to change your minds.
Our guide in this turbulent time is Griffin, played by the late Corey Ham (The Lost Boys) in one of the few films he made without his contractually obligated partner, Corey Feldman. Looking ten years younger than he’s supposed to be, Griffin is a badass rollerblading pizza delivery boy who has to look after his younger brother, Miltie (Devin Clark), and keep him away from falling under the spell of the Rollerboys.
PLOT TWIST: Turns out Griffin and Gary know each other from way back in the day, and when the former saves a Rollerboy from a crack house fire, he’s invited to join up and spread racial discrimination in the funkiest way possible. Surprisingly, a lifetime membership to the Extreme Sports wing of the Hitler Youth doesn’t appeal to Griffin and he spurs Gary’s advances. When Miltie ends up dealing drugs for them however, Griffin joins up with the police to go undercover, save his brother and take down the Rollerboys.
If it hasn’t been remarked upon enough, Griffin, Gary and all the Rollerboys ride around on skates all the time. In fact, for reasons that are never explained, all the ‘yoof’ get about on rollerblades. Even when Patricia Arquette turns up as an undercover cop, she’s bounding around on wheels. It’s established there are cars, no one seems to be bereft of petrol, roller-skates can neither outrun nor deflect bullets, so why is it a thing? Once you start thinking about, it prays upon you at night.
It’s such a surreal thing to include in the film that it’s extremely hard to take anything that happens seriously. I can’t help but feel that someone saw 2015’s Turbo Kid, despite clearly being a parody, decided they could make a much grittier version, travelled back in time and did so. That might sound like a convoluted way to make film, but I ask you, dear reader, how else you do you explain the rollerblades. How?!
Not that removing the offending foot furniture would instantly up the quality of the film. Prayer of the Rollerboys is the kind of film where you feel every minute of its run time. And it’s only a little over 90 minutes! Like Juno, it has a hipness to it that feels designed by committee.
Despite its insistence that the Rollerboys are the baddies, it’s troubling that the majority of people of colour in the film are there to portray the violent, thuggish B-19s, a rival group that the Rollerboys want to wipe out. Admittedly, being a white supremacist group, they’re unlikely to take on board anyone who doesn’t look like Corey Haim, but that doesn’t refute the acknowledgement that this is an incredibly white film where white people join forces to save the day. In summary, it’s all a bit icky.
Finally, I’d like to acknowledge the glacial romance between Haim and Arquette that is more comical than it is sexy. There’s no denying that Haim had his fans back in the day, but in the cold light of post-90s, but he looks extremely out of depth here and remarkably uncomfortable in his ‘love scene’ with Arquette. You know who was never uncomfortable? Feldman! Just check out the horrendous Busted and how he throws himself into every sex scene in that. The man was insatiable.
But I digress…
A parody of itself before the end credits even roll, Prayer of the Rollerboys is perhaps more interesting in this current climate for its portrayal how a small group of people with conservative leanings can quickly gain control by promising to help the disaffected and poor. Replace the rollerblades for tiki torches and the comparisons become even clearer.
Prayer of the Rollerboys was chosen to be reviewed by one of my lovely Patreons. Thank you for your selection! If you’d like to you’d like to learn more about my Patreon, click the link here.
Written and directed by Alice Lowe (Sightseers), this brilliant comedy horror sees the aforementioned Lowe play Ruth, a heavily pregnant woman who stalks London, killing various men at the behest of her unborn child. Rather than simply being a still in the womb Omen story, Prevenge ventures into some surprisingly touching areas about mourning and accepting one’s grief. There’s a sense that deep down Ruth doesn’t what to do what she’s doing, but once she’s pressured and her blood begins to boil, she sees no other options.
Filmed on a ridiculously small budget, Prevenge is cinematic in scope.The strongest scenes come with Ruth’s regular visits to her midwife (Jo Hartly) and her admissions of anger towards what her baby makes her do is seen as pre-natal depression. Acting like a spiritual sequel to Sightseers, the film manages to comfortably navigate through nihilism and comedy without spilling over too much into either.
Serial Kaller
Here’s a fairy tale for you. There once was a men’s magazine called Loaded, who got their won TV channel despite lad culture’s death rattle being heard across the universe. Still, they persisted and decided to make a film under the Loaded Film banner. Enter director Dan Brownlie who wanted to mark his directorial debut with a script about sex line workers being stalked and killed. Off Brownlie went to film his debut, but alas, Loaded TV folded and off went 90% of his crew. Still, he persisted and now Serial Kaller is here for everyone to see. Lucky you.
Going into this film, knowing the garbage hand that Brownlie had been dealt, you cross your fingers that this’ll turn out to be a rough little gem. Unfortunately, despite a knowing sense of what it is, Serial Kaller is a slog to get through. Out of the mixed bag of acting on display, Dani Thompson (Cute Little Buggers) and veteran genre actor, Debbie Rochon (Vampire’s Kiss) make a fair bash of it. However, unless you’re looking for tepid entertainment that relies on nudity more than it does scares, you’re best looking elsewhere.
The Bat
One of the joyous things about Crane Wilbur’s The Bat is the abundance of exposition around every corner. Practically everyone talks to each other like they’ve never met before. ‘Hello, Donald. You remember my wife. We met two years ago and were married at Christmas. It was a lovely affair. Well, I must be going now.’
The other joyous element is the brilliant Vincent Price, playing Dr Malcolm Wells; an expert on the habits of bats who may also be the creature terrorising small town America known only as the Bat! Spoiler alert – He’s not. But we have a wonderful time watching him play red herring for 80 minutes. Criminally, they don’t make them like Vinnie anymore.
As we grow and get older, it’s common to see the large group of friends we once had in our youth begin to fracture. Often, it’s for familiar reasons such as moving away, getting married or having children. These are the commonplace grumbles we’ve all had. “I never see Darryl anymore since he got a kid.” Darryl doesn’t hate you, his circle of priorities has moved over ever so slightly to accommodate looking after this mewling creature that’s come out of his partner and needs constant attention until it buggers off at the age of 18. Darryl doesn’t love you any less, stop hassling him.
Sometimes, and this is rare, we fracture our group by ourselves. A sharp word or misappropriated ‘joke’ goes awry and the next thing you know, you’ve had a blazing row with your friend of 20 plus years and they no longer want to see you. It can leave you devastated and abandoned, or it can leave you poisoned and bitter. Time will heal you and one afternoon, your thoughts may turn to that person. You’ll sift through some feelings you’ve not had in a while, and you may even ponder about what happened to your friend and if you’ll ever make amends.
The second episode in the fourth season of Inside No 9 is about friendship. It’s about other things too, of course. It throws a spotlight on comedy and the creative/argumentative process. It tackles remorse and regret, the empty feeling of reminiscing about a past that you can’t alter. It’s about trying to make amends with yourself.
Largely though, it’s about two friends: Tommy (Reece Shearsmith) and Len (Steve Pemberton).
Tommy and Len were once a popular comedy duo from the late 80s called Cheese and Crackers. I mentioned this episode is partly about comedy and their old name immediately conjures acts like Cannon and Ball, and Little and Large. Comedy duos you couldn’t imagine continuing should one leave the other. Tommy and Len have long since gone their separate way and now, 20 years later, find themselves in a school hall getting ready to put on one last show.
Tommy is now Thomas, a successful businessman who wishes to have the whole Cheese and Crackers business best forgotten. In a temper, he admits to Len that he pays someone to take down any videos of their old act that are uploaded to YouTube. After all, how is he to do business if people have seen him ‘with tights on my head and ping-pong balls for eyes.’ Len, on the other hand, has never left the duo. He bounds into the hall, bubbling at the prospect of working with Tommy again. As they run through their old routines, he throws himself into each one with more gusto than his partner. Whilst this is all an incredibly dated embarrassment for Tommy, it’s a second chance for Len.
One of the wonderful things about this episode is how, come the ending, it begs you to rewind and listen again to the dialogue, now with added weight. A bittersweet joke about Len having all their old shows on VHS but not being able to watch them foreshadows the later revelation that he is homeless. When Tommy barks that he’s only returned because of a letter from Len’s daughter, this is the first step towards acknowledging that things got much worse for old Lenny. Other clues were there, from Len’s overzealous splash of whiskey in his coffee to using real beer in their sketches. Len is an alcoholic or to be more exact was. This whole episode has really been about Tommy attending his friend’s funeral and preparing to give a speech in honour of a man he hasn’t spoken to in decades. It’s an old trope of speaking to the dead, but the way they pull it off is heart-breaking.
To read all the above, it does sound like a bleak half hour. Inside No 9 very rarely wades up to it neck in dramatic waters, and there are enough laughs here to stave off the doom and gloom. From being unable to rely on celebrity impersonations because they’re all on the Yewtree list (‘People love remembering things that happened in the 70s.’ ‘This lot don’t.’) to much more innocent affair as Tommy and Len go through their genuinely funny old school routines. In the end, the running over old material allows Tommy to move on from the animosity he had towards Len’s drinking, and remember his friend in a warmer light.
With excellent performances from Pemberton and Shearsmith, this poignant piece of TV was a reminder that there is always a chance to forgive, our friends never really leave us and if you’re going to cry, cry tears of laughter. Just wonderful.
‘Based on the highly successful Manga of the same name, 2017’s Death Note will always be synonymous with two things: being one of Netflix’s first forays into big budget filmmaking, and repackaging a Japanese story to sell it as a whitewashed tale for the US. The second of these two things is a serious matter to discuss and the film unintentionally highlights Hollywood’s fascination with assuming that Americans can’t relate to a character unless they’re white and male. See also: Ghost in the Shell, Prince of Persia, Dragonball: Evolution, The Last Airbender, and so on. Without sounding flippant though, this isn’t Death Note’s only issue. Directed by Adam Wingard (The Guest), Death Note is a sluggish, tonally uneven film which cribs from the Donnie Darko style guide.’
John Noonan 