BOTCHED: A Bunch of Cut-Ups

By CALUM WADDELL

After the success of 2004’s riotous SHAUN OF THE DEAD, it was inevitable that further Brit flicks would come along that attempted to combine lacerations and laughter in a similar bid for gruesome glory. SHAUN’s Edgar Wright followed up with the splattery cop-satire romp HOT FUZZ, while this year’s THE COTTAGE has attracted largely positive response. Nevertheless, perhaps the true successor to SHAUN is BOTCHED, a terrific, and very slick, combination of slasher flick, heist movie and all-out, bloodstained comedy. Rest assured, for anyone who misses the glory days of Peter Jackson’s low-budget masterworks BAD TASTE and DEAD ALIVE, BOTCHED more than delivers, with a mean streak a mile wide that’s complimented by laugh-out-loud moments of gruesome excess. Having toured the fest circuit (including last year’s New York City Horror Film Festival, where it took Best Feature and Actor prizes), it hits U.S. DVD May 13 from Warner.

Helmed by first-time feature director Kit Ryan and scripted by Derek Boyle, Eamon Friel and Raymond Friel, BOTCHED stars Stephen Dorff (making a successful return to the genre after 2005’s ALONE IN THE DARK) as a prolific thief who bungles a diamond robbery in the South of France. Returning to his employer, Dorff is given one last chance at success: He must retrieve a priceless family heirloom from a Moscow tower block. Assisted by two colleagues (including the psychotic Peter, played by LAYER CAKE’s Jamie Foreman), the heist appears to be going to plan—until the threesome become trapped, with hostages, on the 13th floor of the high-rise and discover they are being stalked by a hulking, ax-wielding giant. What follows includes decapitations, limb-lopping aplenty, death-by-disco-soundtrack and a creepy sect that enjoys nothing more than the odd spot of human sacrifice.

“I love gore,” laughs Ryan when Fango catches up with him. “My influences on BOTCHED include stuff like THE EVIL DEAD, Peter Jackson’s DEAD ALIVE and DELICATESSEN. I remember when BAD TASTE and DEAD ALIVE first came out; I found them totally bizarre, but also very unique. They had their own look, and those two movies, more than any others, were in the back of my mind throughout BOTCHED, because I also wanted to make a film that had a very distinct visual style. I also wanted to do a movie which injected a huge amount of horror into the plot, but at the same time, you laugh at it because it is all so tongue-in-cheek. You chuckle when someone’s hand gets cut off, but in the same breath, you cannot help but be shocked by how damn gruesome it all is!”

Ryan has more favorite moments where this mix of mutilation and comic timing comes together: “I really like the bit where Peter is told to release this hostage, so he takes him to the elevator. Of course, the poor guy gets his head sliced off by our killer!” the filmmaker laughs. “So Peter has to walk back to his friends, and the other hostages, with a decapitated head in his hands. The interaction between him and Stephen Dorff’s character Ritchie, who cannot believe what he is being told, is just priceless. Then, in the background, a rat comes and starts gnawing on the guy’s head—much to the disgust of everyone [<I>laughs again</I>]. So you have this straight American hero, which Stephen plays so well, and the way Peter’s character is…he’s just shrugging his shoulders and saying, ‘So he got his head cut off, big deal, it happens.’ The contrast is very funny.”

With so many gruesome demises peppering the plot of BOTCHED, Ryan admits that he was tempted to go the digital-FX route. Ultimately, though, he opted to use practical, on-set trickery. “My special effects artist was a guy called Paul McGuinness and we began working closely together during the preproduction process,” he recalls. “I wanted to use as much prosthetics as possible for this, rather than CGI, so we had to plan early. It didn’t always work properly on the day, but things did come together in the end. All the same, we did use some computer effects, but on a low-budget feature like this, I never believed that it would work so well. It takes a lot of money to make CGI look realistic, and there’s nothing worse than when it looks bad. So we did utilize it, but only to enhance the effects—usually when we needed even more blood to spray from a severed limb.”

Employing so much practical mayhem also meant walking around a set every day that was swamped in dead bodies. “Yeah, our set was the killer’s playground, and seeing those gray walls day after day could be quite depressing,” Ryan laughs. “Then, once the blood and the bodies were splattered all over the place, it became a bit eerie. However, after a while it was more amusing than anything else. As much as they looked realistic, we know what they were.”

Ryan is equally enthusiastic about his cast. “Stephen Dorff was fantastic to work with,” he says. “However, at least initially, he didn’t quite get it. I believe a lot of people were the same, though—as soon as the first head came flying off 25 pages in, they didn’t read any further [<I>laughs</I>]. At least Stephen stuck with it.” Then there’s Irish-born actress Bronagh Gallagher, sporting a surprisingly spot-on Russian accent and whipping up a storm as a madcap, blood-caked psychopath. “Bronagh has such an evil laugh that it’s almost comical,” Ryan says. “And to team her up with this huge killer and have them both slash up the cast…it was like Little and Large! They just seemed totally ridiculous together. But I could not have been happier with casting Bronagh; I’ve been a fan of hers ever since she appeared in THE COMMITMENTS and PULP FICTION.”

Although the movie is largely set in Moscow, Ryan lensed BOTCHED in a region far removed from Red Square. “We filmed it in Ireland,” he admits. “Originally, the movie was set in Glasgow—perhaps because the writers are Glaswegians. It was pretty much the same story, but it took place in a Glasgow housing estate and involved drug dealers. However, when we took the project abroad to America, we found that they wanted it to be set somewhere else. As a result I changed it to Moscow, practically overnight, and we worked on it from there.”

Now, following a theatrical release in the UK, Ryan is eagerly awaiting the American reception to BOTCHED. “It was a relief when it went down so well [at the festival] in New York,” he says. “Obviously, it might not appeal to someone who wants a straightforward slasher film, but it is hopefully going to win favor with those who enjoyed SHAUN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ. I do think there are moments where people will be repulsed, but because of the black comedy, there’s nothing in BOTCHED that will really gross people out.”

And with his first feature under his belt, Ryan is looking to the future—and for those who enjoy BOTCHED, he is happy to maintain that he has no plans to leave the genre anytime soon. “There is a good chance you will see BOTCHED PART II,” he chuckles. “We already have a script that brings back a couple of characters, and it would be great to do it. I also have a straighter horror movie which is designed to put the frighteners in people, and I hope to start that at the end of the year.”

See FANGORIA #274, on sale this month, for Dr. Cyclops' rave review of BOTCHED.