Burning Men – REVIEW

Not a as might be expected a raging feminist tract against blokes, Burning Men is about two musician’s, Ray (Edward Hayter) & Don (Aki Omoshaybi) frustrated at their lack of musical breaks and with one of them booted out of his flat after a break up with a girlfriend they sell some of his records at a music fare where they steal a rare vinyl album. Not as rare as a decent record by the late unlamented boyband Another Level but a disc of which they are unaware has satanic messages contained within……so in that respect it could well be a record by Another Level.  Hooking up with a pair of groupies Susie & Gemma they meet at a pub’s band night they retire for a night of jiggy-jiggy before the caravan they stay in is attacked and the two musicians and one of the women Susie (Elinor Crawley) flee. So far, so expected but what follows is a British road movie across East Anglia with a series of initially comic misadventures and escapades which slowly grow more surreal and certainly far more sinister when they are made aware of the album’s occult associations as more and more interested parties pursue them for the album.

Burning Men is directed by Jeremy Wooding,  who made his name with the 2003 series of Peep Show the influential Channel 4 comedy series starring  Mitchell & Webb distinguished by the characters thoughts being heard over the point-of-view shooting style, and it is that POV style that he has applied to the entire 95 minutes of the film here.  It’s a style that largely works in what is a distinctly British film with its pair of musicians and their female friend freewheeling through the British countryside in a battered blue car in episodic style with things turning very, very dark and in that respect it owes much to Ben Wheatley’s, ‘Kill List’ and much like that film Burning Men is destined for cult success.

Here’s the trailer……