Dead Right (film)
Encyclopedia
Dead Right is an early short film from Spaced
and Shaun of the Dead
director Edgar Wright
. Filmed in 1992 and 1993 in his hometown of Wells
, England
when Wright was only 18. He wrote, edited, produced and directed the film as well as shooting and recording the sound. It is a Zucker Brothers
style comedy that parodies the action
thriller genre, most notably the Dirty Harry
series (Dead Right was the working title for the original Dirty Harry). The film is shot on SVHS and contains an impressive cast of 70 actors (mostly amateur), mainly made up of Wright's school friends and colleagues. Clips from the film were first broadcast on Take Over TV - the Channel 4
series consisting entirely of video clips sent in by viewers - that also launched the careers of comedy duo Adam and Joe
.
intro that used to accompany VHS rentals where Bates would explain to the viewer what certificate the film had received - 18 apparently - and what adult content they could expect to see.
The story begins with a serial killer bumping off the residents of a small Somerset
community. Maverick DI Barry Stern is assigned to the case and - despite his reluctance - is partnered with by-the-book fellow DI Mike Tight.
On their first time out together Barry shoots a dealer trying to sell him cocaine in a public toilet. Meanwhile the killer stalks a woman home from the supermarket and kills her by electrocution with a kitchen light.
Mike and Barry show up at the scene of the crime and discover the woman bludgeoned to death. A box of cereal has been left on her head leading Barry to summise that they are now looking for a cereal killer.
Back at the precinct Mike addresses his fellow inspectors. He tells them that in order to catch the killer they must look at and obey the formula that most cop movies go by even though it is a British movie and there won't be any car chases. Barry points out that the partner usually dies in these kind of movies but Mike says he is thinking more along the lines of the Lethal Weapon
films.
The following day the police stakeout the local supermarket where they expect the killer to strike next. Barry is disguised as a mime. Mike is disguised an old lady in order to ensnare the killer. A small boy asks Barry for a mime. Barry gives him the finger that leads to him getting beaten up by the boy's elder brother.
Meanwhile Mike proceeds to the local park followed by the killer. Once there he realizes he is being followed and radios for help but it's too late. The killer attacks Mike and stabs him. Barry arrives on bike to find Mike dying. Mike says he loves Barry and gets him to give him a final kiss. Before he dies he tells him to look in the script to see where the killer is hiding out.
Barry arrives at a creepy looking house. There he is captured by the killer and tied to a chair. Barry says he knows who he is and proceeds to tell him his back-story: The killer is Philip Quinn. As a child he was made to eat cereal every day. He couldn't do it and in later years developed an inferiority complex about it. He then murdered his parents with a Black and Decker jigsaw and inherited their estate. He surrounded himself with waifs-and-strays that, like him, were hooked on cereal and slowly built up an army of hockey
stick carrying box-men. He got a job at the local supermarket to satisfy his desire for cereal but he couldn't stand it when people would buy it for themselves and so he would follow them home and murder them.
Philip leaves Barry under the watchful eye of his beautiful sister Antonia. She seduces him and ten seconds later they are lying in bed together post-coitus. Barry handcuffs her to the chair and makes his escape.
Outside Barry encounters one of the box-men. He manages to defeat him by jumping on his face, which blows up. Meanwhile Antonia sounds the alarm which summons a whole army of box-men. They chase him into a room that turns out to be an armoury. He tools-up and proceeds outside to face his adversaries. A gun battle ensues during which Barry discovers that one of the box-men is MI5 undercover agent Nigel Roscoe. The pair join forces to fend off the box-men. After a lengthy action sequence they manage to slaughter the army leading to much splatter and carnage. However by this point Antonia has escaped and she hurls a knife into Nigel's back killing him. Barry shoots Antonia in the head.
Back at the supermarket Philip is working. Barry turns up to catch him but DI Jackson is waiting there to take Barry in. Barry subdues Philip but when Jackson interferes Barry lets Philip go in order to recapture him elsewhere. He tells Jackson not to follow him and lays chase.
In the local park Philip takes Edgar the director hostage and kills him. Barry breaks character, grabs a passing extra and gets her to direct the rest of the film.
Barry corners Philip in a playground. The pair have a showdown where they fight it out one-on-one. The fight culminates with Barry shooting Philip in the chest but only after reciting the "do you feel lucky" speech from Dirty Harry. Philip begs for mercy and says he wants to be Barry's best friend. Barry shoots him in the head.
As the police show up to clear up the mess Barry has created he sits forlornly on a park bench. Disillusioned with the police he throws his badge away before riffling through his pockets and pulling out a pin, a police radio and a grenade. Realizing too late that the pin was from the grenade it goes off.
The shooting script was only a first draft and not properly formatted. The budget for the film came solely out of Wright's pocket and went mainly on tape stock, props (water pistols painted black), costumes and food colouring. The surprisingly large cast was made up of his friends but he has said he went "outside my social circle" when it came to filling all the roles the film had to offer.
Dead Right contains many early examples of filming techniques that would later become Wright's trademarks such as transitions, whip-pans, wipes, tracking steady-cam shots and dolly zoom
s. However there are very few sound effects unlike his later films for example Hot Fuzz
where there is a heavy reliance on sound.
Both Dead Right and Hot Fuzz were attempts to do a British cop movie in the style of a US cop movie.
Wright says "There was a little wave of sub-standard British thrillers I used to think were quite pathetic trying to take on the Americans at their own game and failing miserably. That was the germ of the idea . . . to have our cake and eat it by both examining the gulf between British action films and American ones and trying to become more American."
Spaced
Spaced is a British television sitcom written by and starring Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson, and directed by Edgar Wright. It is noted for its rapid-fire editing, frequent pop culture references and jokes, eclectic music, and occasional displays of surrealism and non-sequitur humour...
and Shaun of the Dead
Shaun of the Dead
Shaun of the Dead is a 2004 British zombie comedy directed by Edgar Wright, starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and written by Pegg and Wright. Pegg plays Shaun, a man attempting to get some kind of focus in his life as he deals with his girlfriend, his mother and stepfather...
director Edgar Wright
Edgar Wright
Edgar Howard Wright is an English film and television director and writer. He is most famous for his work with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost on the films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, the TV series Spaced, and for directing the film Scott Pilgrim vs...
. Filmed in 1992 and 1993 in his hometown of Wells
Wells
Wells is a cathedral city and civil parish in the Mendip district of Somerset, England, on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills. Although the population recorded in the 2001 census is 10,406, it has had city status since 1205...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
when Wright was only 18. He wrote, edited, produced and directed the film as well as shooting and recording the sound. It is a Zucker Brothers
Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker
Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker are an American comedy filmmaking trio consisting of Jim Abrahams and brothers David and Jerry Zucker who specializes in slapstick comedy films during the 1980s and the early 1990s...
style comedy that parodies the action
Action film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...
thriller genre, most notably the Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry is a 1971 American crime thriller produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the Dirty Harry series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan....
series (Dead Right was the working title for the original Dirty Harry). The film is shot on SVHS and contains an impressive cast of 70 actors (mostly amateur), mainly made up of Wright's school friends and colleagues. Clips from the film were first broadcast on Take Over TV - the Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
series consisting entirely of video clips sent in by viewers - that also launched the careers of comedy duo Adam and Joe
Adam and Joe
Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish are British comedy performers known together as Adam and Joe. They are best known for presenting Adam and Joe on BBC 6 Music, and The Adam and Joe Show on Channel 4 from 1996 to 2001.-History:...
.
Plot
The film opens with a parody of the Simon BatesSimon Bates
Simon Bates is a UK disc jockey and radio presenter. Between 1976 and 1993 he worked at BBC Radio 1, presenting the station's weekday mid-morning show for most of this period. He later became a regular presenter on Classic FM...
intro that used to accompany VHS rentals where Bates would explain to the viewer what certificate the film had received - 18 apparently - and what adult content they could expect to see.
The story begins with a serial killer bumping off the residents of a small Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
community. Maverick DI Barry Stern is assigned to the case and - despite his reluctance - is partnered with by-the-book fellow DI Mike Tight.
On their first time out together Barry shoots a dealer trying to sell him cocaine in a public toilet. Meanwhile the killer stalks a woman home from the supermarket and kills her by electrocution with a kitchen light.
Mike and Barry show up at the scene of the crime and discover the woman bludgeoned to death. A box of cereal has been left on her head leading Barry to summise that they are now looking for a cereal killer.
Back at the precinct Mike addresses his fellow inspectors. He tells them that in order to catch the killer they must look at and obey the formula that most cop movies go by even though it is a British movie and there won't be any car chases. Barry points out that the partner usually dies in these kind of movies but Mike says he is thinking more along the lines of the Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon is a 1987 American buddy cop action film and the first in a series of films, all directed by Richard Donner and starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as a mismatched pair of LAPD detectives, and Gary Busey as their primary adversary...
films.
The following day the police stakeout the local supermarket where they expect the killer to strike next. Barry is disguised as a mime. Mike is disguised an old lady in order to ensnare the killer. A small boy asks Barry for a mime. Barry gives him the finger that leads to him getting beaten up by the boy's elder brother.
Meanwhile Mike proceeds to the local park followed by the killer. Once there he realizes he is being followed and radios for help but it's too late. The killer attacks Mike and stabs him. Barry arrives on bike to find Mike dying. Mike says he loves Barry and gets him to give him a final kiss. Before he dies he tells him to look in the script to see where the killer is hiding out.
Barry arrives at a creepy looking house. There he is captured by the killer and tied to a chair. Barry says he knows who he is and proceeds to tell him his back-story: The killer is Philip Quinn. As a child he was made to eat cereal every day. He couldn't do it and in later years developed an inferiority complex about it. He then murdered his parents with a Black and Decker jigsaw and inherited their estate. He surrounded himself with waifs-and-strays that, like him, were hooked on cereal and slowly built up an army of hockey
Hockey
Hockey is a family of sports in which two teams play against each other by trying to maneuver a ball or a puck into the opponent's goal using a hockey stick.-Etymology:...
stick carrying box-men. He got a job at the local supermarket to satisfy his desire for cereal but he couldn't stand it when people would buy it for themselves and so he would follow them home and murder them.
Philip leaves Barry under the watchful eye of his beautiful sister Antonia. She seduces him and ten seconds later they are lying in bed together post-coitus. Barry handcuffs her to the chair and makes his escape.
Outside Barry encounters one of the box-men. He manages to defeat him by jumping on his face, which blows up. Meanwhile Antonia sounds the alarm which summons a whole army of box-men. They chase him into a room that turns out to be an armoury. He tools-up and proceeds outside to face his adversaries. A gun battle ensues during which Barry discovers that one of the box-men is MI5 undercover agent Nigel Roscoe. The pair join forces to fend off the box-men. After a lengthy action sequence they manage to slaughter the army leading to much splatter and carnage. However by this point Antonia has escaped and she hurls a knife into Nigel's back killing him. Barry shoots Antonia in the head.
Back at the supermarket Philip is working. Barry turns up to catch him but DI Jackson is waiting there to take Barry in. Barry subdues Philip but when Jackson interferes Barry lets Philip go in order to recapture him elsewhere. He tells Jackson not to follow him and lays chase.
In the local park Philip takes Edgar the director hostage and kills him. Barry breaks character, grabs a passing extra and gets her to direct the rest of the film.
Barry corners Philip in a playground. The pair have a showdown where they fight it out one-on-one. The fight culminates with Barry shooting Philip in the chest but only after reciting the "do you feel lucky" speech from Dirty Harry. Philip begs for mercy and says he wants to be Barry's best friend. Barry shoots him in the head.
As the police show up to clear up the mess Barry has created he sits forlornly on a park bench. Disillusioned with the police he throws his badge away before riffling through his pockets and pulling out a pin, a police radio and a grenade. Realizing too late that the pin was from the grenade it goes off.
Cast
- Edward Scotland as Barry Stern
- Martin Curtis as Philip Quinn
- Richard Green as Mike Tight
- Oliver Evans as Jackson
- Peter Wild as Chief
- Gavin Elwood as Enfield Bow
- Rob Yarde as Nigel Roscoe
- Amy Bowles as Antonia Quinn
- Graham Low as The Box Monster
- Ian Hill as Dead Before Credits
- David Scotland as Simon Bates
- David Denning as Gateway Employee (Cameo)
- Gregory Curtis as Young Philip Quinn
- Daniel Rowlinson as The Ginger Kid
Production
Director Edgar Wright had won a Super VHS camera from a competition on the Saturday morning kids TV show Going Live and so was able to make his own amateur shorts. At the time of the film's production he was a student at the Arts Institute of Bournemouth and would only be able to shoot the film whilst back home during term breaks.The shooting script was only a first draft and not properly formatted. The budget for the film came solely out of Wright's pocket and went mainly on tape stock, props (water pistols painted black), costumes and food colouring. The surprisingly large cast was made up of his friends but he has said he went "outside my social circle" when it came to filling all the roles the film had to offer.
Dead Right contains many early examples of filming techniques that would later become Wright's trademarks such as transitions, whip-pans, wipes, tracking steady-cam shots and dolly zoom
Dolly zoom
The dolly zoom is an unsettling in-camera effect that appears to undermine normal visual perception. It is part of many cinematic techniques used in filmmaking and television production....
s. However there are very few sound effects unlike his later films for example Hot Fuzz
Hot Fuzz
Hot Fuzz is a 2007 British action dark comedy film written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, and starring Pegg and Nick Frost. The three had previously worked together on the 2004 film Shaun of the Dead as well as the television series Spaced...
where there is a heavy reliance on sound.
Both Dead Right and Hot Fuzz were attempts to do a British cop movie in the style of a US cop movie.
Wright says "There was a little wave of sub-standard British thrillers I used to think were quite pathetic trying to take on the Americans at their own game and failing miserably. That was the germ of the idea . . . to have our cake and eat it by both examining the gulf between British action films and American ones and trying to become more American."