"Tony" http://www.beardyfreak.com/rvtony.php
Tony (Peter Ferdinando) is a misfit, a loner and a total outcast from society.
He has no friends, no acquaintances, no social structure, no plans, no dreams…and he’s also a serial killer.
So come and spend some time with the most dangerous nobody in London.....
Filmed in 16mm and shot almost completely on location in London (and parts of Manchester) “Tony” perfectly captures that gritty, dirty, desperate and schizophrenic existence of low lives in low places.
With various aspects of Tony’s personality and traits based on real life serial killers and with a screenplay completely embedded in everyday realism, “Tony” not only draws the viewer into its world almost to the point that you truly could be an invisible being following Tony around, but from a purely cinematic point of view it’s the closest British horror cinema has come to that grimy exploitation aesthetic not only of its own late 60’s/early 70’s output but it’s also the first time ever that a British film has truly captured that fascinating underground, everyday life, vibe of something like “Driller Killer”.
The utterly wonderful screenplay not only captures the most mundane, tacky, tragic, desperate, sleazy and dangerous moments of Tony’s existence but the finely attuned observations as well about the people he comes in contact with.
At the film's heart though is the truly amazing, almost genius in its observational detail, performance by Peter Ferdinando.
From his look (the hairstyle, the bad moustache, the old charity shop clothes, the unflattering glasses) , his mannerisms (awkward attempts to engage others, the often despairing contemplation, the shuffled walk) and his schizo personality where the dreary awkward misfit and victim suddenly explodes into a clinical killer who briefly becomes the most dangerous person in the room, all is magnificent.
His dialogue deliver is perfect as well to give us perhaps the least flashy but genuinely unsettling and realistic serial killer essay seen in cinema. Truly.
The film’s only real failings are that this brilliantly low key approach that helps to create the masterful drama of the plot needs to be ditched (at least in part) as far as many of the grotesque and brutal aspects of Tony’s serial killer existence go.
We have followed Tony through his ‘normal’ moments and daily grind in such a realistically subdued fashion that we have almost been in his skin.
As such we need to be with him when he cuts up bodies in the bath, arranges the rotting corpses in his bed and cracks open a man’s skull.
All of which occurs in the film, but all of which (a great looking severed foot in the sink and a couple of briefly glimpsed limbs put in a bin bag aside) we are never truly party to.
That’s not to say the film does not have a couple of effective moments of (essentially sudden) violence though.
The throttling of a man with an electrical cord is made to look as painful, drawn out and hard as it would be to accomplish, an asphyxiation is pretty disturbingly crafted and an offal scene where Tony puts the guts into plastic bags is suitably in your face.
Overall though "Tony" is expertly acted (especially by the brilliant Ferdinando), astutely observed, microscopically astute, technically sharp, brilliantly directed and wrapped up in a magnificent, haunting, score (by ‘The The’ frontman Matt Johnson).
It could do with a bit more dripping meat and perhaps an extra 10 minutes onto it’s quite short running time, but otherwise this is the finest, most frighteningly, essentially low key and believable serial killer film we have perhaps ever seen (even beating “Henry: POASK” as far as realism goes) and as such has nothing but my full admiration and wholehearted recommendation.
Another gem in the crown of modern British horror.