Sandor Stern directs David Hewlett, Cynthia Preston and Terry O’Quinn in this weird incest drama with horror undertones about a mentally disturbed young man and his inanimate medical dummy.

A psycho biddy flick where the schizo is a clean cut young man!? Norman Bates, you say? Well, that is an influence. Hitch’s modern gothic permeates through this. The medical dummy is a creepy creation. Doling out sex advice blankly to the kids. At one point it is raped and later it has rubber skin added to it. Making it even ickier to look at. I didn’t realise an uncredited Jonathan Banks provided the voice until an internet scrub after. The narrative is very unpredictable. It is quite freeing to watch something so haphazard. But there aren’t really any suspense set pieces. It is all a big Freudian mind game. The acting can be wobbly, and we are often stuck in one location for long stretches. There are unsettling shots that will haunt you though. A mixed bag of VHS era strange.

5

Perfect Double Bill: Flowers In The Attic (1987)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin