Cannibals and Carpet Fitters

A quirky British comedy with about two carpet fitters, Colin (Darren Sean Enright) and Dean (Richard Lee O'Donnell) who…ahem…have the rug pulled from under them when one of their customers, a sweet old lady (Jenny Stokes), turns out to be hiding a ghastly secret beneath the floorboards of her Downton-Abbey-style abode.

Set in a picturesque stately home, Cannibals & Carpet Fitters has a wonderful combination of quintessential British charm and comedy - it is witty and weird in perfect unison. Some of the one-liners are bust-a-gut funny - for example when Dean confuses Josef Friztl with a pretzel.

There is an eeriness about this short film from Bushe that captures the darkness and wackiness of something like The League of Gentlemen. Bushe's filmmaking skills are a true talent to observe, with a superb dedication to using a variety of framing methods, and the result is a film which looks utterly top standard.

This is a vibrant and show-stopping comedy that would make a fantastic horror-comedy feature, which may well be the plan. It has excellent characters, a brilliant blend of guts and gags, and two lead performers who spark well off each other.The music is well chosen, adding to the light heartedness of the atmosphere, and it adds a great sense of joviality to the two main characters bouncing along in their van - reminiscent of Peter Kay's Pheonix Nights.

Some may find the barmy buffoonery of Colin and Dean far below their reach, and others may dislike the way the film blends genres, however, refined taste is all well and good, but whether laying carpet or making a film the same ethos is always true - always check your customer is not a psychotic maniac looking to feed you to her underground monster! And have fun doing it.

CANNIBALS AND CARPET FITTERS is a British horror comedy short that I somewhat bizarrely saw playing on the local TV channel, Notts TV. It's very much a waste of time, a film that heavily copies the likes of previous British horror fare (in particular THE COTTAGE) without any style or look of its own.

The story is about a couple of carpet fitters who turn up at a remote old house to do a job for an old lady. Unbeknownst to them, she hides a dark secret in her cellar, and violent action ensues. Sadly, the whole thing is derivative in look, feel, and tone, and the amateurish quality of the acting doesn't help much better.

I always appreciate and support the work of low budget filmmakers, but if director James Bushe wants to turn this into a feature-length production then he really needs to find his own material and create something fresh and unique instead of merely copying what's come before. As a final note, the running time of CANNIBALS AND CARPET FITTERS is so short that it's padded out at the end with dumb outtake footage that really should have been deleted from the camera.