The Acid House
UK 1998
Reviewed by Xan Brooks
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
A portmanteau film of three tales from present-day Scotland.
'The Granton Star Cause' finds lad-about-town Boab dropped from his local football team, dumped by girlfriend Evelyn, sacked from his job and thrown out of home by his long-suffering parents. After vandalising a phone box, Boab is held in a police cell and beaten up by the cops. Drinking at a local pub, he is confronted by God in the guise of a hard drinker. God accuses him of wasting his life and turns him into a fly. In his new guise he gets revenge on all those who rejected him until he is swatted dead by his mother.
'A Soft Touch' focuses on the trials of pliant Johnny, whose wife Catriona takes to cheating on him with Larry, the boorish lout who lives upstairs. Larry uses the electricity from Johnny's flat and beats him up when he protests. When Catriona becomes pregnant, Larry dumps her. Johnny takes her back.
In the last tale, "the Acid House", rave-kid Coco drops acid and switches personalities with Tom, a new baby born to middle-class Rory and Jenny. Coco is thus regarded as brain-damaged, and Tom as a precocious, if foul-mouthed, wonderkid. Coco and Tom finally encounter each other in the pub and swap back to their rightful identities.
Review
By the simple law of averages you're bound to like at least some portion of a portmanteau or multi-story film. If one tale doesn't interest you, rest assured there's another one on the way. You can appreciate them in isolation or speculate on their possibly interrelated nature.
What links the three stories of The Acid House is Irvine Welsh. The Trainspotting author's scabrous wit, rave aesthetic and skewed world view run through each tale. For added familiarity, Trainspotting-graduates (the actors Kevin McKidd and Ewen Bremner) crop up in parts two and three respectively.
The sniffy line on Welsh is that he is a one-book wonder, yet the three stories here (culled from his short-story collection of the same name) at least display a semi-fresh diversity. 'The Granton Star Cause' is Kafka's Metamorphosis set on a Scottish housing scheme while 'A Soft Touch' is a kind of social-realist Special Brew opera. 'The Acid House', the concluding part of the triptych, is both the most ambitious and the least satisfying. Tilting at a kind of record-deck aesthetic, this loops and scratches its dialogue like a dance remix set in celluloid. In it, Welsh audaciously marries the revelations of an LSD trip to the trauma of birth, and sex (Coco entering his girlfriend) with labour (Tom exiting his mother). But its fascinating strands are finally too undigested. In the event, 'The Acid House' ends up wallowing for way too long in its central hallucination segment. It is also too close to Look Who's Talking for comfort.
Debut director Paul McGuigan has gone from stills photography to television documentary work (on programmes as varied as Walk on the Wild Side and The Dani Behr Show) and this multi-discipline pedigree serves him well. Originally the producers envisioned their film helmed by three different directors, yet (at least until that garbled final chapter) McGuigan moves beautifully with the shifting landscape of Welsh's tales.
On the absurdist, flight-of-fancy first part his style is jaggedly cartoonish, switching into grainy camcorder footage for the insect's point of view. For the next tale he adopts a more formal, less showy approach in keeping with the subtle, naturalistic mood and one that effectively hands the floor to McKidd's startlingly strong performance as the emasculated Johnny. Although McGuigan claims never to have seen Trainspotting, occasionally sequences seem like direct allusions. The grotesque baby puppet from 'The Acid House' calls to mind the ceiling-crawling sprog in Renton's bedroom, while the opening sequence of 'The Granton Star Cause' (characters introduced in freeze frame at a football match) looks like a copy of the first moments of Danny Boyle's picture.
It should be stressed, though, that The Acid House is not another Trainspotting. It lacks its pin-up inhabitants, its easy dash, its mainstream handling of charged material. McGuigan's fractured film is altogether smaller, edgier, darker and more in tune with the grimy, hit-and-miss panache of Welsh's prose. It chooses a life that is all its own.
Credits
- The Granton Star Cause {1}
- Producers
- David Muir
- Alex Usborne
- Screenplay
- Irvine Welsh
- Based on short stories from his book The Acid House
- Director of Photography
- Alasdair Walker
- Editor
- Andrew Hulme
- Production Designers
- Richard Bridgland
- Mike Gunn
- © Channel 4 Television Corporation
- Production Companies
- A Picture Palace North/Umbrella Productions film for Channel 4 in association with the Yorkshire Media Production Agency
- Part funded by the European Regional Development Fund/The Scottish Arts Council National Lottery Fund/The Glasgow Film Fund
- Associate Producer
- Carolynne Sinclair Kidd
- Production Manager {1}
- Fiona Henderson
- Production Manager {2,3}
- Sara Barr
- Post-production
- Consultant:
- Mark Gravil
- Assistant Directors {1}
- Ian Madden
- Alison Goring
- Ted Mitchell
- Assistant Directors {2,3}
- Neil Calder
- Bill Clark
- Kathleen Wishart
- Jodi Moore
- Script Supervisor {1}
- Janis Watt
- Script Supervisor {2,3}
- Dorothy Connolley
- Casting Consultant
- Carolynne Sinclair Kidd
- Fly Photography {1}
- Rod Clarke
- Steadicam Operators {1}
- Howard Smith
- Al Rae
- Steadicam Operator {2,3}
- Simon Bray
- Digital Visual Effects
- Film Factory at VTR
- Visual Effects Supervisor/Producer:
- Simon Giles
- Visual Effects Compositors:
- Sally Clayton
- Peter Connelly
- Visual Effects Animator:
- Steve Begg
- Film Recording:
- Zoe Cain
- Trevor Young
- Flame Artists
- Tom Sparks
- Smoke and Mirrors
- Graffiti Artist {2,3}
- Tommy Keenan
- Baby Coco {2,3}
- Nik Williams
- Animated Extras
- Puppeteers:
- Geoff Felix
- Colin Purves
- Rik Marr
- Tracy O'Brien
- Sue Howard
- Jonathan Klahr
- Art Director {1}
- Rohan Banyard
- Art Director {2,3}
- Jean Kerr
- Scenic Artist {2,3}
- Kelvin Guy
- Storyboard Artist {2,3}
- Rob McCallum
- Costume Designers
- Pam Tait
- Lynn Aitken
- Wardrobe Supervisor {1}
- Fiona King
- Make-up Designer {1}
- Marilyn MacDonald
- Make-up Designer {2,3}
- Sarah Fidelo
- Titles/Opticals
- General Screen Enterprises
- Titles Directors
- Luke Pendrell at antirom
- Dylan Kendle at Pink
- Soundtrack
- "Insect Royalty" by/performed by Primal Scream; "Maracana Madness" by/performed by E-Klektic; "Break" by McLynden, Lyons, McLynden, performed by The Gyres; "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" by Jimmy Webb, performed by (1) Glen Campbell, (2) Nick Cave; "Nothing to Be Done" by Stephen Pastel, Aggi Wright, Brian Taylor, Martin Hayward, Bernice Simpson, performed by The Pastels; "The Sweetest Embrace" by/performed by Nick Cave, Barry Adamson; "Stupid Thing" by Paul Quinn, Horne, Kirk, Hodgens, performed by Paul Quinn & The Independent Group; "Carbon" by Horberry, Hulme, McGeorge, Mudford, Tétaz,Woodhead, performed by O Yuki Conjugate; "Summer Wind" by Mayrer, Mercer, Bradtke, performed by Jack L.; "The Man with the Golden Arm", "The Vibes Ain't Nothing but the Vibes" by/performed by Barry Adamson; "This Is Carboottechnodisco" by March, Stokes, performed by Bentley Rhythm Ace; "That's Life" by Kay, Gordon, performed by William 'Giggs' McGuigan; "Rhinestone Cowboy" by Larry Weiss, performed by Glen Campbell; "Wonderwall" by Noel Gallagher, performed by The Nat Sanderson Sound; "Ill Behaviour" by Smith, Hendrickse, performed by The Soul Renegades; "Precious Maybe" by/performed by Beth Orton; "Hot Love" by/performed by Marc Bolan; "Slow Graffiti" by/performed by Belle & Sebastian; "Demonoid" by Flesh, Mart, performed by Technoanimal; "I Still Miss You" by/performed by Arab Strap; "Going Nowhere" by Noel Gallagher, performed by Oasis; "Nautical Dub" by Mellweg, Koner, performed by Porter Ricks; "The Cantino Sessions", "Claiming Marilyn" by Richard Fearless, Steve Hellier, performed by Death in Vegas; "Re-arranged Face", "Somewhere South of Here", "Moving Heat Source", "40 Watt Ovals" by Fazzini, Hulme, Sedgwick, performed by A Small Good Thing; "Leave Home" by Simons, Rowlands, Baxter, performed by The Chemical Brothers; "Shag" by Mudford, performed by The Sons of Silence; "Toujours l'amour" by/performed by Dimitri from Paris; "Bobby Dazzler" by Mudford, Gardiner, Hulme, performed by The Sons of Silence; "On Your Own" by Simon Jones, Peter Salisbury, Nick McCabe, Richard Ashcroft, performed by The Verve
- Sound Design
- Andrew Hulme
- Sound Recordist {1}
- Alan Brereton
- Sound Recordist {2}
- Brian Howell
- Dubbing Mixers
- Douglas S. Murray
- Mark Berger
- Dubbing Editor
- John Gow
- Fly Wrangler {1}
- Rupert Barrington
- Cast
- The Granton Star Cause
- Stephen McCole
- Boab
- Maurice Roëves
- God
- Garry Sweeney
- Kev
- Jenny McCrindle
- Evelyn
- Simon Weir
- Tambo
- Iain Andrew
- Grant
- Irvine Welsh
- Parkie
- Pat Stanton
- barman
- Alex Howden
- Boab Sr
- Ann Louise Ross
- Doreen
- Dennis O'Connor
- PC Cochrane
- John Gardner
- Sergeant Morrison
- William Blair
- Gary McCormack
- Malcolm Shields
- workmates
- Stewart Preston
- Rafferty
A Soft Touch- Kevin McKidd
- Johnny
- Michelle Gomez
- Catriona
- Tam Dean Burn
- Alec
- Gary McCormack
- Larry
- Scott Imrie
- pool player
- Niall Greig Fulton
- Alan
- William Blair
- Deek
- Cas Harkins
- Skanko
- Maurice Roëves
- drunk
- Morgan Simpson
- Chantel, the baby
- Marnie Kidd
- Chantel, the toddler
- Alison Peebles
- mother
- Joanne Riley
- Diana
- Sarah Gudgeon
- new girl
- Katie Echlin
- Wendy
- William 'Giggs' McGuigan
- pub singer
- The Acid House
- Ewen Bremner
- Coco
- Martin Clunes
- Rory
- Jemma Redgrave
- Jenny
- Arlene Cockburn
- Kirsty
- Jane Stabler
- Emma
- Maurice Roëves
- priest
- Doug Eadie
- Coco's father
- Andrea McKenna
- Coco's mother
- Billy McElhaney
- Felix the paramedic
- Ricky Callan
- Tam the driver
- Barbara Rafferty
- Dr Callaghan
- Stephen Docherty
- Nurse Boyd
- Ronnie McCann
- Andy
- Cas Harkins
- Skanko
- Certificate
- 18
- Distributor
- Film Four Distributors
- 9,981 feet
- 110 minutes 54 seconds
- Dolby
- In Colour
- Prints by
- Metrocolor
A Soft Touch {2}
The Acid House {3}