Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Doug Rao
Starring: Graham McTavish, Susie Porter, Stan Steinbichler, Honor Gillies, Alice Lucy, Ruaridh Aldington, Olivia Chenery
Dirty Boy, actor Doug Rao's feature debut as writer/director, is one of the oddest and most frustrating horror movies I've seen in some time. It's a cult movie in the literal sense, as it's set within a cult, but it also seems desperate to acquire a cult following. That's always a folly, as filmmakers don't make cult movies, audiences do. Rao appears to have made his film deliberately obtuse, perhaps in the hope that this will prompt rewatches, but once will be more than enough for most viewers.
The film takes place in what initially appears to be our reality, either in the present day or at some point in recent centuries. Isaac (Stan Steinbichler) is a troubled young schizophrenic who lives within the walls of a vaguely Christian cult headed by the husband and wife duo of Walter (Graham McTavish) and Verity Wentworth (Susie Porter). Isaac is taunted by the voice of his alter ego, who encourages him to stand up for himself. Fellow cult member Hope (Honor Gillies) similarly attempts to persuade Isaac to escape the cult.
As is usually the case, this cult appears to be structured around the sexual exploitation of young women. The female members are expected to "relieve" Walter. It's all clouded in a lot of pseudo "wellness" babble, but anyone who steps out of line is severely punished, as we see early on when Hope is forced to down a bottle of apple cider vinegar for some minor insubordination.
Over the course of the film Isaac makes several attempts to escape, and each time he breeches the walls of the compound we get another glimpse at the world outside. Early on it seems we're dealing with either the near future or some alternate timeline. Technology is almost absent save for a Star Trek-esque device that looks like a bisected wooden ball and seems to function like a smartphone. The introduction of this gizmo only serves to lead us to start asking questions about when and where this is all taking place, questions which are frustratingly left unanswered. The world-building is deliberately vague, teased in glimpses of a bizarre society where almost everyone seems to be allied with the cult in some way. By the time the plot starts to kick in late on you may well have lost patience with the obfuscated storytelling.
Tonally, Dirty Boy is as schizophrenic as its young protagonist. it deals with some very dark material yet often resorts to broad comedy. When Isaac fakes an overdose and ends up in a nearby clinic, he's attended to by a sexy nurse who seems to have walked in from a Benny Hill sketch. Isaac and others are constantly cracking cringeworthy dad jokes. Dirty Boy never takes itself seriously, so why should we?
At least we have some eye candy in the film's glorious alpine backdrop. It's never established where this is taking place but it was shot in the same area as The Sound of Music, so if you lose interest in the plot you at least have some breath-taking vistas to take in. Though a British production, everyone speaks with transparently fake American accents of the sort you hear when a Broadway musical gets transferred to the West End. Perhaps, given its Sound of Music adjacent location, Dirty Boy's pitch for cult status might have been more convincing if it went all in as a Rocky Horror-esque musical. It could badly use a spoonful of sugar to make its medicine go down.
