Cult Screenings UK and Dead Mouse Productions have created an anthology of sorts, Dark Ditties. In a similar open vein to the old Hammer TV series, the films are about an hour long with an emphasis on character-driven narratives that allow for small budgets to be stretched as far as possible. The Offer from 2017 started the anthology and at least two more productions are underway. In the meantime, we have Mrs Wiltshire.
Here, we spend some time in the house of the titular character, an elderly lady who reflects on her life direct to camera. Despite pleas from her son to leave with him, she’s trapped there by the spirit of her dead husband, a vile and violent man whose abuse of her and their children becomes more apparent. What will it take for her to leave him behind?
On the plus side, Mrs Wiltshire is handsomely mounted, the single setting its often nicely lit. There’s a very strong performance too from former Coronation Street star Bruce Jones as the ghostly and ghoulish Mr Wiltshire (he was also in The Offer). There’s a neat twist you may see coming, but it’s fun.
However, clocking in at just 67 minutes, it still feels like this would have made a better half-hour short, too many scenes just fading to black when you think things are getting going. The writing too is a little odd. Mrs Wiltshire talks like a pensioner from decades ago as if she had never moved on from the 1950s, despite references to mobile phones, so she seems to have been written by someone who doesn’t talk to any old people in real life. Some of the plot makes no sense (the phone call to the daughter) and makes the whole thing slightly confused. Also, it just isn’t scary.
Still, hats off to the Dark Ditties team. Even if this one doesn’t quite work, it’s a great endeavour and here’s to the next instalment.
Finally, in what’s essentially a chamber piece, the character of Mrs Wiltshire is played by the recently departed Doris M. F. Bonham. Apparently, she died just after filming was completed. Funny that, as she looks like a man in some heavily-aged makeup. Read her entry on IMDB – if the script to Mrs Wiltshire showed half as much wit and invention, it would have made for a much more enjoyable hour. If we’re wrong and Ms Bonham was actually real, we apologise before she comes back to haunt us…
DARK DITTIES PRESENTS ‘MRS WILTSHIRE’ / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: NEIL MORRIS, GARY SMART / STARRING: SIMON BAMFORD, BRUCE JONES, RAY SKEEMER, SIOBHAN KILMARTIN, DORIS M.F. BOHNAM / RELEASE DATE: TBC
