SHOCKHEADED – Microbudget horror movies seem so different today. This was made maybe fifteen years ago, but almost seems closer to SOV stuff from a decade or so earlier. You can’t fault its ambition – I love underground stuff, but let’s face it, it’s a breeding ground for derivative dross half the time, whereas at least ‘Shockheaded’ tries for something other than badly lit slashing. That said, it’s kind of obvious where it’s coming from – a moody guy in a cheap hotel room who looks suspiciously like Bill Pullman receives ambiguous messages from a man in a white mask, gets entangled in the mystery surrounding an underground porn channel and is visited by a bargain basement version of Robert Blake from ‘Lost Highway’. This heavily aspirational surrealism, all wonky angles and random shots of yellow wallpaper, eventually gives way to a something that more closely resembles a really badly made thriller, but not before ‘Shockheaded’ makes an endearingly odd impression that feels quite hypnotic. Its steals from Davids Lynch and Cronenberg are forgivable, but less tolerant horror viewers might be quite dismissive of the obvious distance between it and an actual, fully realised movie – it really is quite clunky and awkward. But if you like badly made weird stuff which manages to achieve a certain level of scuzzy atmosphere, ‘Shockheaded’ might be something you could get into.
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