The pilot for a proposed new anthology series (aren’t they a bit en vogue at the moment?), The Offer is staggering. Staggering in what filmmakers can do these days for a handful of doubloons. Seven strangers are invited to a creepy mansion and asked to partake in a game for which the winner inherits the dead dude’s wealth. Said dead dude is ever present through the episode, dishing out exposition like it’s going out of fashion (as m’dear old Ma would say).
The opening shot, set on the porch of the mansion, immediately bring a touch of the Hammers to mind but, once that front door swings open to our cast for tonight’s play for the day, it dips a little. You could be forgiven for thinking this might be a horror-comedy, so deftly are the characters drawn as ragingly offensive stereotypes; surely this is a post-post-modern modern nod to how far society has come, in that we can laugh at what is essentially trivialised racism/sexism etc.? Nope, it’s just slightly misguided writing. Here we have the lesbian, the businessman, the sleazy car salesman, the gay theatre lover, the working class bloke, the black guy and the obvious-but-dull heroine. Each painted with brushstrokes that could be sharpened by another glance over the script. After each death, we are treated to a monologue on each of our subject’s backstories that is meant to subvert our opinion of them. Unfortunately, when one of those backstories is that the young man in question was a drug dealer (guess which) each of the subsequent ‘revelations’ falls a little flat. That said, somehow there is something endearing about each of them.
In amongst this, there is one perfect example of how to show a gruesome chainsaw based death on a shoestring budget effectually. In fact, this is where the filmmakers have absolutely nailed it. It’s clear they didn’t have much to play with, but boy do they play with it. They don’t attempt a multi-location shoot, but instead embrace the ‘chamber piece’ as form. Many of the kills are performed in the age-old black-out, but it never becomes tiresome, the sound effects do all the heavy lifting here- leaving the rest to the imagination in a resolutely Hitchcockian way.
Kenneth Cranham is, as you would expect, fantastic as the Host. Props go to Siobhan Kilmartin as his Nurse (watch the show, you’ll understand why) and ex of Corrie star Bruce Jones imbues his sleazeball with a pathos you would think unimaginable.
Pilots are often a tough cookie to crack, but this shows plenty of promise should it go to series. This show is what would result from Hammer and the Saw franchise making a baby. It is one hell of an ugly baby (as they all are, really), but in all the right ways. Oh, and there’s a gimp, who doesn’t love a gimp?
THE OFFER / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: CHRIS GRIFFITHS, GARY SMART / SCREENPLAY: NEIL MORRIS, GARY SMART / STARRING: KENNETH CRANHAM, BARBIE WILDE, OLIVER SMITH, SIMON BAMFORD, NICHOLAS VINCE, BRUCE JONES, DANNY STREWART / RELEASE DATE: TBC
