Whether or not a horror film festival takes place online in our ‘new normal’, it’s good to have a film to close the day which knows how to play for laughs and, let’s be fair, make very few demands on us as an audience. So, when the director of Chestersberg, Jamie McKeller, introduced his film as “absolutely ridiculous”, it seemed like just the ticket. I do believe the first spoken word of dialogue in the film is “Battenberg?” That actually tells you a great deal, I think…
Channelling something of Alex Chandon’s Inbred (2011) in terms of style and sense of humour, this film is framed as a mockumentary. We’re told that when Chester Mapleforth (Andy Love) came into a vast amount of money, he decided to establish the village of Chestersberg as an independent state – an idyllic corner of Yorkshire where murder is absolutely legal. A spot of light murder busts stress, avoids a life hemmed in by bureaucracy and improves quality of life. The village residents enjoy it too; in fact, the village is oversubscribed. Chester is ready to tell his story now, so he (more or less) guarantees a film crew that they won’t be murdered while they document life in the town. Various community members, and would-be community members speak to camera about their roles.
For thoroughness, the crew also speak to those that would wish to get rid of Chestersberg altogether: DI Matthews (Alexander King) and his boss DCI Waits (Andrew Lee Potts) have been keeping an eye on the village for some time now, desperate to exploit some error or oversight and get rid of the project for good. Not a bit of it, so far as Chester’s concerned: he wants to expand. But there is the small issue of a traitor in the ranks…and rival villages all vying for ownership over the idea…oh, and this year’s MurderFest, which is always an unmitigated disaster…
To describe the whole ‘murder is legal’ idea on paper, it’s tough to avoid comparisons with the basic plot of The Purge; this just goes to show how completely differently things can be done, even whilst having some basic plot points in common. Chestersberg has very much opted for the ‘splatstick’ approach, missing no opportunities for a gushing neck wound or a lopped limb. Deliberately campy and OTT, with an array of practical FX, people into gore for gore’s sake will be very much at home here. When not scattering the cornfields with limbs, Chestersberg indulges in rather a lot of puerile humour too and, to be fair, most of the jokes land – though some of the throwaway lines are actually the funniest, in my book. The presence of Martin Clapham, a would-be Chestersbergian who can never quite make the grade, made me laugh every time and put me in mind of Peter Jackson’s gross-out-fest Bad Taste in places – in style, as well as content. This is, though, archetypal Yorkshire, and North Yorkshire at that. This means a backdrop of farmland, the streets of York, village greens, and proper tea. Tea gets mentioned a lot in this film, perhaps more than in any other horror film I’ve seen so far. As a preface to a violent death, I suppose you could do worse than a brew.
Whilst there is some sense of this being a stretch as a feature-length, by which I mean the sheer number of gushing necks over the running time, there are enough laugh-out-loud moments and a strange sort of rough charm to Chestersberg to keep things entertaining; yeah, it’s deliberately daft, there’s no grand agenda and it’s overlaid with cartoonish gore throughout, so if you are happy to see all of this play out for laughs, then there’s more than enough to be entertained by in Chestersberg. There’s also someone playing a kazoo in a bin, which is something I find very difficult to argue with.
Chesterberg played as part of the Soho Horror Festival’s ‘SoHome’ virtual fest. For more information, check out @SohoHorrorFest on Twitter.