By Simon Thompson
Writer/Director Neil Ferron and Alexandra Dennis-Renner’s horror-comedy short Fishmonger is an absolute joy to watch. Fishmonger works so well because it’s both genuinely unsettling and hilarious at the same time. Tonally, the best way to describe this movie is that it’s Father Ted by way of Robert Eggers’s The Lighthouse, Cannibal The Musical, and The Mighty Boosh, with Herron’s and Alexandra Dennis-Renner’s witty script doing a masterful job of balancing the various contrasting narrative tones.
Fishmonger tells the story of Christie O’Mallaghan ( Dominic Burgess), an impotent, put upon, Fishmonger, living in a small and religiously superstitious Irish seaside town. When Christie’s beloved mother Kathleen ( Mari Weiss) is possessed by supernatural forces, Christie is forced into making a sex pact with an ancient sea creature to prevent his mother’s soul from being eternally damned. What happens over the rest of the narrative is so bafflingly surreal and funny that I want to give away as little as possible; this is a short that truly shines when you know the bare minimum about it before viewing.
Neil Ferron’s direction fully brings out the beauty of the film’s setting, with the isolated and folkloric nature of the seaside town being the perfect spot for a story like this to take place. When you add in the beautiful monochromatic shooting style by cinematographer Jack Macdonald into the mix, however, the end result is truly mesmerising to look at. Ferron’s use of tight angles and cramped interiors is a neat piece of visual storytelling which manages to convey the hopelessness of Christie’s situation far more effectively than bombarding the audience with excess dialogue.
The writing and acting in Fishmonger is absolutely sensational. Ferron and Alexandra Dennis-Renner’s script is packed full of both humour and genuine heart but it never fully spills over into becoming schmaltzy mush, a lesson that a lot of modern Hollywood comedy writers (looking at you Judd Apatow) could stand to learn.
In a movie stuffed to the gills with good performances, I would especially like to single out Dominic Burgess’s turn as Christie for special praise. Burgess does a fantastic job of bringing out Christie’s meek and pathetic nature, and although you feel sorry for Christie throughout most of the movie, Burgess isn’t afraid to highlight some of Christie’s less likeable traits in a way that a lesser actor in the role wouldn’t dare.
To conclude, Fishmonger is an incredibly well-crafted short film bursting with horror, heart, charm, humour, and originality- all in a single, neat, twenty-six-minute package. If you’re both a fan of surreal comedy and horror and have exhausted your DVDs of Sam Raimi’s early work and want something else which covers both bases, then Fishmonger is just what the doctor ordered.
Fishmonger screened as part of HollyShorts 2024.
Bloody Flicks 