British filmmaker Nick Gillespie’s latest outing, PAUL DOOD’S DEADLY LUNCH BREAK, a horror-comedy combining the dog-eat-dog worlds of TV Talent shows and social media influencers, premiered at the SXSW Film Festival earlier this week.
Penned by Gillespie, Brook Driver and Matt White, and boasting an insanely extensive ensemble cast headed up by Tom Meeten, Jarred Christmas, Johnny Vegas, Katherine Parkinson, Steve Oram, Kris Marshall and Alice Lowe, the film follows Paul, a weedy charity-shop worker with two left feet whose only real aspiration in life is to win a national talent competition. With a makeshift sparkly sequin suit, a killer routine, and his dear old Mum in tow… his big chance has finally come … or so he thinks.
Unfortunately for Paul, when the actions of five intransigent, selfish people get in his way and cause him to miss his audition, Paul sets out on a deathly revenge mission: One lunch break, five spectacular murders!
Just hours ahead of the SXSW premiere, SCREAM hopped on a Zoom call with Gillespie and Meeten to discuss the terrors of talent show telly, balancing horror and humour to create a perfect killer comedy, and how they might just have unintentionally channelled the light-ents heavyweight champion of the world, Mr. Lionel Blair…
Words: Howard Gorman
