Carry On. Confessions of a Window Cleaner. On The Buses. Yup, it’s fair to say that, for all its failings, one thing the British film industry is consistently good at is producing very, very silly films. And that trend extends into horror too, with the likes of Psychomania, I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle, and at least 80% of the movies (and that might be too generous a figure) made by Hammer and Amicus.

When it comes to contemporary British horror, however, the urge for absurdity seems to be a tad more restrained. Leading the pack is, of course, the great Neil Frickin’ Marshall (damn you Jamie, you’ve got me saying it). While his crowning glory The Descent is a masterpiece of solemn, humourless terror, and his recent underrated action thriller Doomsday is at least outwardly played straight, his virgin effort Dog Soldiers was a riot of werewolf action cut heavily with sniggering schoolboy jokes: just witness the about-to-be-devoured squaddie spitting at his lycanthropic oppressor, “I hope I give you the shits!” And of course we can’t forget the bloody brilliant Shaun of the Dead, surely the most perfect balance of belly laughs and belly ripping scares since the glory days of Evil Dead 2 and An American Werewolf in London. But, with Marshall by and large playing it straight, and Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg interested first and foremost in blending other genres with comedy, who do we have to fly the Union Jack for horror movies that are trashy, dumb, excessive, and totally proud of it?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you – Jake Frickin’ West.  

(What? It might catch on.)

  You only need to hear the premise of his first feature Razor Blade Smile to know that this guy is not striving too hard to make an ‘important’ film. It’s the story of Lilith Silver, a buxom, gun-toting, leather and rubber-clad vampire hitwoman, following her adventures as she sucks, shoots and shags (or bites, bangs and bonks; I could keep going) her way across London town.

There is a plot of sorts, but it’s hardly worth surmising here. If the idea of a busty brunette in dominatrix gear blowing away creeps and having lots of nookie doesn’t do it for you, then you won’t be interested in Razor Blade Smile. For the rest of us, however, there’s plenty of fun to be had. And – as I believe I have already suggested – it’s all very, very silly indeed.

  For starters, Eileen Daly perfectly fills out the role of Lilith (tee-hee, see what I did there?). Not only does she look very comfortable bulging out of her series of fetish costumes, but she gets the tone of the piece just right, letting each droll one-liner roll off the tongue with relish, hamming up every moment of melodrama. Unlike so many actors in low rent DTV horrors, she’s under no illusions of grandeur, never attempting naturalism, revelling in the absurdity of it all. The same can’t be said for all of her co-stars, but hey – dodgy acting is all part of the fun of a cheapo movie like this.  

And, oh yes, Razor Blade Smile is cheap alright, shot in the time honoured tradition of Evil Dead and El Mariachi on a single handheld 16mm camera, with West serving as his own editor as well as writing and directing. It clearly got polished up a bit in post, however, with scenes mixing black and white with colour (red blood, of course), and a few flashy CG sequences; not too shabby for an shoestring production in 1998. And while the money isn’t there for decent stunts or gore FX, West is smart enough to make the most of what little is available, keeping things fast with a constantly roving camera and location-hopping action. And when all else fails, there’s nothing like a little sexploitation to fill in the blank spots. Ms Daly proves an eager beaver (tee-hee! I did it again!), be it hot lesbo licking with a vampire wannabe, sucking off a sleazeball photographer (prompting him to exclaim “I like a girl who uses her teeth” – guess how that bit ends), or getting down to some old fashioned skin slapping boy-girl action with her partner in crime. All strictly softcore, of course, but Google Eileen Daly and it won’t take you long to see that she’s done a bit of the hard stuff elsewhere. If you are so inclined to Google such things. Ahem.

West the writer has fun too, crafting a weird tale that incorporates the classic obsessive police investigation, a bit of Illuminati conspiracy buff stuff, and the long standing conflict between Lilith and the vamp that turned her over a century earlier – the gloriously camp Christopher Adamson. It’s all a bit convoluted, but, credit where it’s due, there’s a genuinely surprising twist that I didn’t see coming. And there’s some wonderfully corny dialogue along the way: Lilith smirking both “game, set and match” and, as if that wasn’t enough, “don’t you just love ball sports?” before blowing a tennis-playing bodyguard’s nutsack off; wooing her prey with “I know you can’t resist my hypnotic charms;” and, early on, the unforgettable narration, “I bet you think you know all about vampires. Believe me, you know fuck all.”

  Despite the cult reputation RBS quickly attained, it took some time for West to get his next one off the ground. But when Evil Aliens finally landed in 2005, it proved that not only could West handle a slightly larger budget, larger scale production, but also that he could make things even more outrageously over the top. One notable chink in RBS’s armour is the lack of decent gore. This is something that Evil Aliens makes up for in spades. And pitchforks. And shears, and scythes, and any number of potentially lethal farming implements, most of which get a look in…

In another masterpiece of casting, heading up the cast of Evil Aliens is actress/TV show hostess/pin-up girl/journalist/all-around crown princess of British horror today, Emily Booth. She plays – yes – a TV show hostess/journalist named Michelle ‘Foxy’ Fox, who fronts a dodgy ufology/paranormal show. She drags her crew to a remote island off the arse-end of Wales, in the hope of a ratings-grabbing story from a farm girl who’s been impregnated by extra terrestrials. Aside from one SF anorak, none of them believe the story to be true, until the ETs in question show up and - as the title suggests – prove to be far from friendly.

Kicking off with a bird’s-eye view of one of the least erotic sex scenes ever, West makes his intentions clear from the get-go: to be about as deliberately distasteful as possible. And he sure delivers, garnishing the expected eviscerations and disembowelments with anal probes, a wince inducing gender-reversed Cannibal Holocaust moment, and some inspired use of a combine harvester. Whoever decided the term ‘gorno’ should apply to the likes of Saw might want to redefine the terminology a little, for this is real gore porn if ever I’ve seen it – and every cast member takes a facial at least once. Disappointingly, though, despite the palatable amount of practical gore FX there’s still a definite overabundance of unconvincing CG blood. It’s also not as kinky as RBS, the foxiest moment (pun intended – you know, because the character is called Foxy…) being the always welcome Emily Booth sex scene. But any – ahem - pleasure to be taken from said scene may be marred somewhat by regular cuts to the inbred farmers (including a distinctly non-typecast Christopher Adamson) leering through peepholes and wanking. Added to which, Booth keeps her bra on, the spoilsport. Never mind, the goods are there for all to see in Pervirella and Cradle of Fear. (What?! Inquiring minds demand to know these things.)

The overcomplicated plotting of RBS is also conspicuous by its absence here, West’s script keeping things pretty simple – aliens want to kill humans, humans fight back - although there is a smidgen of the Fortean in there, with some vague malarkey about stone circles and ley lines, and most bizarrely a cameo of sorts from the Great Beast 666 himself, Aleister Crowley. But the emphasis here is firmly on the ridiculous slaughter, and rightly so. Evil Aliens might not quite reach the same dizzy heights as the Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson flicks it clearly aspires to, but it takes a pretty good stab at it. And a slash. And a hack. And a chop. Oh Christ, I think I’m suffering from bad pun overload…

  There can be little mistaking that Jake West is the kind of guy most at home with the absurd and the excessive. Sadly, there is no better evidence of this than his last directorial effort, and first attempt to play it straight: the Sci-Fi Channel production Pumpkinhead 3: Ashes to Ashes. Maybe I’m biased, as I’ve never cared much for the franchise, but dear oh dear, this film is dull as dishwater. I could only handle about the first forty minutes of feeble attempts at Southern accents and even feebler attempts at drama before hitting eject. Not even the presence of Doug Bradley, the artist formerly known as Pinhead, can save proceedings; in fact, to be brutally frank, his lacklustre performance only makes matters worse. Sad, sad, sad; and yet I’m inclined not to hold West entirely responsible, as it was not his baby but simply a director-for-hire gig. Think of it as his Christine, maybe. (Oh no, I mentioned a John Carpenter film in a disparaging way – cue the shit storm!)

Never mind, though, for West’s next effort Doghouse is underway, and looks likely to be his biggest film yet, with a higher profile cast, including mockney boy wonder Danny Dyer (Severance, Straightheads) and Noel Clarke (Dr Who, Kidulthood). Given the premise – a stag weekend goes to hell when all the women in town are mysteriously zombified – it looks like we’re back on Evil Aliens ground, with the potential for a very British dollop of old fashioned politically incorrect humour. Booth’s back too, with a character tantalisingly dubbed The Snipper. Ouch. Here’s hoping it’s a success, and that West keeps on doing what he does best. For while he’s no challenger to Neil Frickin’ Marshall’s crown, he’s at the forefront of British directors whose movies go great with beer and curry on a Friday night, and are least likely to pop up in the Oscar nominations.

  Pardon? Did you just say… Paul W S Anderson? Gasp… how dare you. We do not discuss that with foreigners.