We start this short film in the natural domain of the nose-picker: a classroom, where a group of kids are learning all about plant biology. Little Georgie (Leo Adoteye) is not fully paying attention, however: clearly distracted and distant, he’s more engaged by digging things out of his nose than he is the lesson at hand. This draws down the wrath of a classmate who, as mean as she is, probably has to put up with this behaviour day in, day out (to be diplomatic here). The camera adds weight to her outrage by briefly showing us the underside of Georgie’s desk. The class teacher tries to reason, quite kindly, with Georgie – but he closes down entirely.
This prompts a phonecall home: as it turns out, Georgie indulges in a bit of nose-pickery at home too, and his behaviour seems to be getting worse. His mum takes a more active approach, whereas dad is all for giving the child some space. Finally, school rocks out the big guns: a counsellor! Rather neatly, the film explores the great deal of hope that we, as a society, place in encouraging, or even brow-beating children (and adults) into talking about their problems. Here, as more generally, you could have a sneaking suspicion that this process is as much about wanting to hear things, as it is about the benefits of saying those things. Despite the pressure placed on him, Georgie stays shtum.
What happens here is that Nosepicker moves from a well-observed look at the day-to-day existence of a possible traumatised child, to being a kind of surreal body horror. Not only does this play with the sorts of cautionary tales we tell children about doing things which polite society can do without (‘the wind will change and you’ll be stuck like that!’) but it expands the premise to its icky, but probably fullest expanse. The practical SFX here is quite something, skirting the line between funny and gruesome, as Georgie continues to pull things out of his nose which – when the right time comes – turn into something altogether different. But, quite honestly, any film where a child puts together a personal snot hillock could have headed in a couple of directions which could also have been funny and gruesome.
Adoteye as Georgie does a good job of representing a child who creates a fair amount of repulsion both in his peers and the audience, but is still a reasonably sympathetic character, as much as we figure out comparatively little about what is troubling him, beyond the general awfulness of the characters in his life. The film presents us with a raft of unpleasant kids, too, always ready to pick on the outsider – as kids are wont to do – so their more voluble performances are a good foil to the silent, largely unknowable Georgie. The film also manages to show us something of the perspective of children being faced down by adults, some well meaning, some more self-motivated. This sets us up for what follows giving us a plausible base layer of snot, sorry plot and character before things get a lot more weird.
And it is weird. Bravo. This is possibly the first truly mucosal body horror I can recall, though it feels like something Frank Henenlotter could have come up with, maybe to fill the time between Brain Damage and Basket Case 2. It’s never quite as camp as Henenlotter, but some of the cut scenes (especially the spaghetti!) and some of the trippier moments recall his work; you’re almost honour-bound to think about a few of the other 80s slime horrors, too, and any number of the ‘moral comeuppance’ horrors of anthology horror shows, because ultimately – and by grotty means – Georgie comes out on top. A bizarrely memorably little outing, this one, which gets more lurid as the film’s fifteen-minute runtime passes by. Great, noisy soundtrack, too. Plus, the film’s plotline has really upset a gentleman from Brazil on ALTER, who has insisted in the comments that this film could be a terrible influence on children, should anyone out there have the interesting idea to show it to them.
Check the film out for yourself today by popping along to ALTER and taking a look.