Drug Abuse

This film I thought was going to be another shoddy, low-budget short that would leave me high and dry. Instead, this film put a profoundly large and uncomfortable knot in my stomach, aswell as leaving me absolutely wanting to see more!

The violence is unrestrained, and the most effective I have ever seen. It's more disturbing than "A Clockwork Orange", "Natural Born Killers" or "The Exorcist"!

Cinematically, Stephen Gibbons draws you in and engages you completely with his confident and masterful direction. It has to be the absolute best "studenty" type film I have ever seen within my 45 years of working within the industry.

If you can persuade someone to give you a copy, then check it out.

He's nasty, he's selfish, he's a womaniser, a drug addict, a drug peddler and a murderer to boot. He takes pleasure in violence. He treats his girlfriend like dirt. Played by ex-Emmerdale actor Stuart Wade, he's a study in out and out nastiness, a bleach-haired, pill popping, fag smoking, gun toting, evil so and so. We see him at a party giving out pills and receiving sexual favours in return, as he leers at his girlfriend, played by Kirsty Doyle.

Cut to the bathroom, and a mutual friend tries to reason with her, and most unwisely, makes advances to her. Our drug dealer soon hears about it, and takes the unfortunate boy out onto Saddleworth Moor and brutally murders him.

Returning to the party with his gang, he tries to get back into the swing of things, but his girlfriend has sent all the revellers home. She wants revenge, and she has spiked his orange juice with drugs. He swills back the poisoned liquid without thinking.

Soon his head starts to spin and he embarks on a scary and disorientating journey into his own psyche. Sweating, he escapes the claustrophobia of the house and flees into the night.

Strange voices whisper to him and ghosts seem to appear out of nowhere. He is trying to escape an unknown unseen presence that seems bent on destroying him.

He is pursued in the tunnel under the railway line, and along an dark pathway through the woods. He climbs over a railing and falls seemingly endlessly through trees, ending up in a river.

All seems well as he enters a the comforting surroundings of a pub, but another ghost appears, and he realises the nightmare definitely isn't over.

Finally he gets his comeuppance, but maybe the ending should have been different.

Drug Abuse is shocking, poignant, and very violent. It's only about half the length of a feature film, but this low budget psychological thriller packs in more than many longer and more lavishly funded productions.

Stuart Wade is excellent as an archetypal violent bad guy, and Kirsty Doyle is perfect as his wasted and downtrodden girlfriend.

There are situations, and people, like this in real life. It's a tragedy, and director Stephen Gibbons has captured it all succinctly and powerfully.