I remember first hearing about
this bizarre horror pic, starring madcap British TV host Keith Chegwin, sometime back in 2011 and was
understandably curious about it. Sadly, the film disappeared from cinemas almost as quickly as it arrived,
so was forced to wait for the DVD release. But is it any good I hear you ask? Read on...
The film revolves around the cast and crew of an early morning TV show called "The Crack of Dawn" (cue lots of smutty "Carry On..." style innuendo). In particular, the shows presenter Dawn (Susannah Fielding) and young Danny (Marc Pickering), who's part of the floor crew and has a major crush on her. Then there's Keith Chegwin, who has a feature on the show called "Cheggers Knocks You Up" (har-har)!
However, the show has been marred by a spate of bizarre murders, by someone dubbed the "Breakfast Cereal (serial) Killer". As several crew members and guests on the show have turned up dead. Suspicion falls upon one of the creepier members of the crew, Brian Stokes, who's nicknamed "The Vampire" by the rest of the staff. But it also seems that the show's co-presenter Chris is up to no good, hence why he's leaving the show.
With more and more guests and crew members getting bumped off, including DJ Tony Blackburn and comedian Joe Pasquele, Danny and his friend Andy (Simon Phillips) try to work out who the killer might be, before he wipes out everyone on set.
What has all this got to do with Keith Chegwin I hear you ask? Well, not much really. As, believe it or not, he's not actually the focus of the film, with whole story about the killer being more of a sub-plot within. Whilst Keith does get his fair share of on-screen time, the story's main focus is actually about Danny trying win Dawn's affections. But once you accept that's what the main focus of the film is, this isn't actually a bad movie, though it's really more of a comedy, than a horror.
I'm pleased to say the gags do actually work quite well and there are some genuinely funny scenes in here. It was also amusing seeing all these well known British TV stars, which also includes Porky astrologer Russell Grant, appearing out of character and uttering profanities at the camera.
So overall, I would say the film is definitely worth a watch, if only for seeing Joe Pasquale say "Fuck Off", and has a sort-of "Shaun of the Dead"/"Hot Fuzz" vibe to it, so if you enjoyed those, you'll probably enjoy this. Though if you don't live in the UK, you this probably won't appeal as the humour will undoubtedly be lost, so I can only really recommend this to UK viewers.
