KILL YOUR TELEVISION
Await Further Instructions with new ’80s-style body horror satire
“imagine being trapped with your family at Christmas – literally.”
This simple premise from screenwriter Gavin Williams will strike terror into anyone, but for Await Further Instructions’ family, it’s just the beginning – most of them won’t live to moan about the leftover turkey.
“The idea came from the song ‘Apartment Story’ by The National,” Williams tells Red Alert. “‘Stay inside till somebody finds us/Do whatever the TV tells us’.”
With all exits from the house blocked by an impermeable membrane, the TV displays a sinister message to “Await further instructions”. The Christmas Day bickering – the source of much being the racist grandad played by the First Doctor, David Bradley – deteriorates into an argument that soon has a body count.
“The TV is the antagonist, here” says Williams, “but the family do it to themselves. This is society – the bad stuff simmering beneath the surface…”
In an era of Trump and Brexit, it feels pertinent – how did they tap into the zeitgeist?
“By accident,” admits producer Jack Tarling, “because our shoot was in 2015!”
“But I remember it had resonance back then,” says Grant Masters, who plays troubled father Tony. “David Cameron was talking about ‘swarms of migrants’. On TV.”
The mix of satire and scares recalls the work of Carpenter and Cronenberg, especially as Await Further Instructions boasts some stomach-churning body horror.
“Definitely,” admits director Johnny Kevorkian. “80s horror, before CG. Everything you see is practical effects – we’re using puppeteers, wires, prosthetics. It’s all real.”
As Masters can attest – for a week he had to endure 4am call-times for a gruelling transformation into a techno-version of Hellraiser’s Pinhead.
“It was great fun, really. What an opportunity as an actor – though I could have done without the bloody contact lenses!” IW
Await Further Instructions is in cinemas from 7 December.