The Young Poisoner's Handbook

Deny it all you want, but films about psychopaths and serial killers can be quite, well, interesting. Take Graham Young for example. Played by Hugh O'Conor as a downtrodden, spiteful nerd genius, Young was the product of a dysfunctional family and a chemistry whiz. If only, as my mother says, he had used his talents for good instead of evil.

     The Young Poisoner's Handbook, the 1995 debut full-length feature by British director Benjamin Ross, follows the "Teacup Killer" Young from the age of fourteen into his early adulthood. And what a fascinating character he is.

   All but incapable of identifying with the suffering of others, Young was both a racist and a psychopath. Later in his life, he laments that things turned out "all wrong" for him. As a boy, he poisons his none-too-bright schoolmate Mick (Jack Deam's) ham sandwich and makes him violently ill and takes over Mick's date.

   There are many good ironic and blackly comic moments in this otherwise dark and morbidly intriguing crime drama. The writer never tries too hard, which is the key. Hugh O'Conor was in a another, inferior film with dark comedy elements, Botched, which applied an over-the-top villain and manic pacing in order to achieve laughs.

     Take the date between Young and Sue (Samantha Edmonds), a girl who works in the London library, for instance. The scene where they pick up his fallen books is set up like a conventional romance, with them awkwardly meeting each other's eyes and Sue initiating a date.

    Then it knocks any "romantic" vibe on it's head, as Graham becomes increasingly inappropriate and morbid, soon bringing the date to an abrupt end. This isn't just teenage awkwardness. Something is just not going to the top floor.

   Hugh O'Conor is quite good, although he doesn't reach the brilliance as a sociopath of Noah Taylor in Simon Rumley's Red, White,& Blue. He is manipulative, wide-eyed, and sometimes strangely likable, and I can think of only one scene where his performance halted.

   I like the film's decision to meld disturbing and funny, like Tarantino, but without the constant f-bombs and gun play. Dated and oddly festive music is used, in order to provide irony and capture the flavor of 20th-century London. (The film starts out in the 1960's.) There are obvious picks about psychotics and anti-social behavior (The Silence of the Lambs, Taxi Driver, and The Shining to name a few.) And that's all well and good, but then there are movies like these, ripe for rediscovery. For the viewing of films isn't all about watching what your friends have watched, but rather, paving the way for new choices.

 

Angela (1995)

 
   
     Movies are hardly ever made about mentally disturbed children. I think it's because people envision childhood as some kind of Eden before they grow up and life gets messy - people get jobs, come of age, and possibly lose their minds - but before that, life is rosy and carefree. Angela, a dark, dreamy film from first-time director Rebecca Miller, proves just how wrong they are. The eponymous character (Miranda Rhyne), who could be diagnosed with any number of psychological ailments, has moved to a ramshackle house with her parents and younger sister Ellie (Charlotte Eve Blythe).

     The girls' mother, Mae, seems to be Bipolar - dark moods come over her unexpectedly and her daughters would do anything in their power to make her happy. Solemn pre-teen Angela, however, is having internal struggles of her own. Obsessed with religious imagery and sin, she is visited by Lucifer, a pale winged man who tempts her with promises of a better life. When young Ellie sets the curtains on fire, Angela puts her in a protective circle surrounded by dolls to purge her of her sins and save her from eternal damnation.

    All right, I'll be downright controversial here - this movie shows how damaging extremist religion can be for children. It is hard to argue (but some people will, anyway) that young children shouldn't be troubled by these things.  By the time they can read "are you saved" slips, even those not born of fundamentalist families will wonder what lengths they should take to follow the right path. This and a chemically unbalanced mind tend to take these things to an obsessive level.

     Okay, now that I've offended two-thirds of he audience and driven them away, I'll get to the technical aspects of the film. The sound, as you might of heard, is really bad. This may or may not only apply to the Netflix Instant version of the film, but the actor's mouths move discordantly with the dialogue so that you hear the sound effect ten seconds after the said action occurs. For a low-budget movie, the acting is pretty good, and the little girls do decent jobs. There is some child nudity, which could be artistic or offensive depending on your point of view, but it bothered me a little bit - can't these girls afford bathing suits?

     I liked Peter Facinelli as the devil- sly rather than overtly threatening and easy to confuse with a good angel (but watch out for those cloven hooves). Last was the sudden, tragic ending, whose implications were more disturbing the more I looked into them. If you like arty, deliberately paced dramas that fly under the radar, this could be a good choice for you. It has a moving message about the psychological vulnerability of children, especially unstable ones, and what happens when they go unnoticed (Rated NR.)

 Rating-** Stars