I saw DOWN TERRACE a year ago at the Raindance Film Festival... and now it is playing at the Sunset 5 cinemas here in Los Angeles. Here's what I said about it in an article for Script Magazine last year...
*Down Terrace* from England, written by Ben Wheatley and Robin Hill was the winner of Best British Feature and was shot in only 8 days, mostly in Hill’s parent’s house. This blacker than black comedy uses genre subversion to make the most of its limited locations and budget ($30k, 8 days of shooting).
*Down Terrace* opens with the welcome home party for the aging leader of a small town criminal organization and his slacker son are released from jail. Not all celebration because someone on their crew must have ratted them out... but who? Dad is an ex-hippy who got into the drug trade because he thought drugs would change the world. We would all be dropping acid and dropping out. He sings folk songs and has a guitar collection and when he gets drunk talks about the 60s. Not exactly Don Corleone.
What makes it funny is that each member of the crime family has a very human character element that is in contrast to their gangster persona - which subverts the genre. The hit man has a three year old son and can’t find a sitter, so he takes his kid in a stroller on an assassination. The kid gets away, as does the target, and the hit man must juggle controlling his child and cornering and killing the target all at the same time... and that’s funny. We don’t expect gangsters to have problems like this.
- Bill
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