Dead Cheap

Since leaving the Sargasso Sea of hoodies and fried chicken wrappers that is South London for their cottage idyll in the chlorophil and warm-beer scented Surrey countryside, making fun of the local paper has become something of a favourite pastime for the Red Pants of Justice and the lovely Mata Hari.  Comparing headlines makes for a striking contrast to say the very least - from 'Stabbing Brings Teen Death toll to 24' the day before we moved to 'Man Runs Wrong Way Up Escalator' a week later. But while one may get an insight into what keeps a society awake at night from the hyperbole of its cover stories, the clues to its private life lies buried in the small print.

It was a simple, two-line advertisement that caught Mata Hari's eye. "Live Rent Free in a Beautiful Countryside Location. Visit www.rent-free-cottage.com to find out more." This sounded, quite literally, too good to be true; like one of those promises of huge wealth for almost no outlay that one sees tied to traffic lights at grimy urban intersections. Nonetheless, our curiosity was piqued, and we had a look.

I couldn't quite put my finger on exactly why what we found was quite so unnerving. Was it the videos featuring the long drive up to the house, with the silent, smiling people standing on the corner? Or was it the constant references to how isolated it is? Or the bit about being free to use the grounds apart from one particular section of the forest. What do they do in there?!  

The whole thing resembled the blurb for a gory airport thriller; or perhaps the build-up for a particularly far-fetched urban legend. But either way, it was quite the most hair-raisingly sinister proposition either of us had ever clapped eyes on.

A third opinion was called for, so we forwarded it to the RPOJ's big sister, the Black Gown of Righteousness. Here's how the conversation went:

THE BLACK GOWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS: Oh my God that is HORRIFYING!  Mother is conspicuous by her absence, isn’t she? And if it’s such a good deal, why have so many couples come and gone over the years?! Some thoughts that occurred to me while watching the videos (which, incidentally, will give me nightmares):

The View Around Your Garden = THE LAST SIGHT YOU WILL EVER SEE

This view shows you how secluded the location is = NOBODY AROUND TO HEAR YOUR SCREAMS

Sorry your parking area is untidy = BUT YOU WON’T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT THAT FOR LONG

The builders have only just finished – BURYING THE LAST COUPLE
OH MY GOD THOSE HORRIBLE SHUFFLING FOOTSTEPS!

WHAT WAS THAT NOISE? A GUNSHOT? AN AXE?
This is where we breed the fowl, for sacrificial purposes.

MATA HARI: That's exactly what WE thought! We decided that the film shot from the dashboard of the car down the loooooong isolated drive in silence is the opening to a horror film.

It could be called 'The Mill House'

Or something.

THE RED PANTS OF JUSTICE: Watch it again. Put the opening theme to the Shining on your internal jukebox. I rest my case.

PS What do you want to bet that "mother" is never actually seen.  Just heard.


BGOR: Oh stop it, I’m already freaked out enough as it is!  And I think ‘The Mill House’ is indeed a spooky title, but nothing surely could match the chilling menace of the name of the website itself: ‘Free Accommodation’.  Or the oft-repeated ‘Your Cottage’. Horrific!

RPOJ: See now I'm thinking of it as a kind of Hammer Horror, 'why would anyone in their right mind ever go for that' sort of thing.

1. Int. Spluttering Old Jallopy. Day.

Charles, an upper-class twit in a blazer and slacks, is 

driving down a secluded country road. Samantha, his fey yet impressively buxom wife, sits next to him holding a suitcase.

SAMANTHA:
Oh Charles, I don't like it.

CHARLES:
Oh honestly Samantha, they sound like perfectly charming people!

SAMANTHA:
But there just seems something... strange about it. It doesn't seem right.

CHARLES:
You're imagining things dear. The man just needs somebody to look after his mother while he's away on important business. What could possibly go wrong?

CUT TO: Half an hour into the film. Charles is lying in a pool of his own blood, brutally hacked to pieces. etc.

BGOR: …Over his body stands an old woman. We cannot see her face, but she has wild white hair and is wearing a quilted dressing gown. She is carrying a large axe. She turns to leave the room. As she does so, we see her face: it is Samantha, who has been possessed by the demon known as ‘Mother’. She shuffles out of the room.

CUT TO: ext. main house. We see ‘Mother’ making her way laboriously up the path to the front door. The camera follows her slowly, ponderously and in complete silence. This shot lasts 4mins 26secs.

CUT TO: The strictly private island. We see Richard, stark naked save for a headdress made of live ducklings, dancing madly around a sacrificial fire, next to a freshly-dug grave.


MH: It would in no way be a spluttering old jalopy.  It would be a convertible Citroen or MG, circa 1968. The producer's car, in other words. Top down, even though it is clearly a gray day. Charles would tend to drive too fast on curves -- the tyres squealing more than one might think is entirely necessary. Samantha (the producer's girlfriend, BTW) would never hold a suitcase, as it would obscure who Playboy-magazine-approved hot body. She would not find his fast driving particularly annoying.  She would also not be able to act worth a damn.

They would both have RSC accents, which, given the dialogue, would be unintentionally hilarious.

They would be going to spend the summer in the Millhouse, where they will have arranged to live rent-free over the summer, acting as caretakers while Charles -- an unsuccessful screenplay writer -- works on the script that could represent his big break. But if he fails with this one, he's all washed up.

The credits would come up during the long drive down the isolated road to the Millhouse. We would hear their murmured conversation 'Goodness, it's a long way...' 'And a bit over-grown!'

The house would be beautifully decorated, but eerily perfect. This would upset Samantha but not Charles, who would repeatedly tell her she's being 'ridiculous'. The old lady would be nice, but her son would never seem to be around when Samantha and Charles are there.

Trouble would begin almost immediately, when one morning while drinking a cup of Earl Grey in a floral tea-cup, Samantha sees something floating in the river. Something that LOOKS LIKE A CHILD!

Etc.


RPOJ: Or, the Japanese version. After spending a month in the cottage, Samantha - or Setsuko, a troubled young woman married to a struggling Japanese businessman - is plagued by nightmares and has to return to the expensive asylum from which she has just been released after several years of treatment. This will involve a number of occurrences too frightening to conceptualise with our puny Western imaginations, but needless to say, scary enough to make grown men cry.

The rest of the film takes place within the asylum, and involves the long, coarse, white hair of 'mother' following Setsuko around, and occasional visions of skeletal old women with backwards facing limbs and bleeding eyes.  Holy shit!