Here we are with another English offering. Directed by Martyn Pick and written by Airell Anthony Hayles, Heckle was filmed in various locations in Norfolk, Hertfordshire, and St. Albans in the UK. I have a particular fondness for Brit films, partly because of my nationality (there’s always a chance they’ll have filmed somewhere I’ve been, and I get to go,”oo, look! I’ve been there!”) but also (and I’m not blowing the British bugle here) because I haven’t seen many that I couldn’t get on with.

Independent films have also earned a  place in my affections, though having watched more than a few lately I’ve noticed in many a frequently occurring element; there’s a lot going on. In these cases there seems to be a tendency towards fitting as much as possible into the run time rather than simplifying the less important (and often seemingly irrelevant) factors, and focusing more on the essential themes and aims of the production. For me this can stand in the way of the plot in terms of who’s who and what their purpose is, confusing the point somewhat.

Heckle is an example of this sort of over-complication; it’s supposedly a horror comedy, but definitely one with identity crises, not quite hitting the mark of horror, comedy, or even spoof.

Guy Combes stars as Joe Johnson, an arrogant, unpleasant Russell Brand-esque stand-up comedian who appears somehow to be the latest ‘big thing.’

Whilst his routines are unfunny and based substantially on being rude to and about just about everyone and everything, he’s nonetheless set to play the lead in Laughter in the Dark, a film about the life and death of equally disagreeable comic Ray Kelly (almost unrecognisable as Steve Guttenberg of Police Academy and Three Men and a Baby fame), who, along with his much younger, long-suffering wife, is murdered at the beginning of the film by an unknown assailant who turns up on his doorstep.

After a show where he’s heckled by an anonymous audience member and loses the plot somewhat, Joe decides to get away for the Halloween weekend with a group of vacuous friends for a 1980s-themed party, all of them joking about how maybe there’ll be an authentic psycho killer stalking the residence to complete the picture.

Fun gives way to fear during the course of the evening as it becomes clear that’s exactly the case; it’s the heckler, and he’s after Joe. Picking off the others at random along the way, he’s the epitome of the classic slasher villain; clothed in the eye-rollingly familiar cheap plastic clown mask and raincoat uniform, and clutching a glinting, ever-more-bloodied axe in a white-knuckled grasp.

Essentially this is a story about a twisted individual and more twisted individuals who seek revenge for his death on another twisted individual. No-one here is innocent; all the characters are charmless, shallow and uninteresting, and quite frankly deserve to meet their fate slasher-style at the hands of the bemasked intruder.

Superfluous characters dispatched, inside the house wreathed in 80’s neon hues, the unmasking of the killer takes place in true Scooby-Doo-like fashion, revealing the heckler’s identity and purpose. What follows is for you to discover, though this is actually where things finally take an interesting turn, flipping the roles of several of the characters somewhat intriguingly.

What I will reveal is how the final scenes of Heckle play out got me thinking about the darker side of celebrity status, potential pitfalls of narcissism and paranoia, and the reality of meeting one’s heroes; it’s just a pity it got interesting a bit too late.

4 out of 10 Cliched Killer Clowns