Directors: Eileen Daly, Lindsey S
Writers: Eileen Daly, Lindsey S
Producers: Eileen Daly, Lindsey S, Dominique Daly
Cast: Eileen Daly, Tom Bonnington, Sam Cullingworth, Justin G Gibson
Country: UK
Year of release: 2020
Reviewed from UK DVD
Website: www.eileendalyproductions.com
These were not included in my four self-published volumes of British Horror Cinema 2000-2019 because they were among that small coterie of titles which fell between two stools. Although listed on IMDb as 2013/14 productions, they did meet my definition of ‘commercially released’ before 31st December 2019 so did not make it into Volume 3. However, by the time I published my addendum of ‘Unreleased and Incomplete’ films, Eileen had self-released these movies on DVD so they didn’t qualify for that either. I am happy to resolve this unfortunate bit of bad timing with this and the two subsequent reviews.
The basic premise here is that Eileen, playing herself, is a paranormal investigator. She has a back-up team of gay medium Lord Sebastian Wainwright and defrocked priest Simon Vogel. The former is played by the impressively ripped Sam Cullingworth (The Eschatrilogy, Legacy of Thorn, Slasher House 2 and 3) as somewhere inbetween Right Said Fred and the Hood from Thunderbirds. The latter is played by Justin G Gibson with a vaguely Satanic beard and an extravagant cravat, as if someone had cast Mike Raven as the poofter neighbour in a 1970s sitcom.
They are investigating a man named Crispin Williams, who claims that there are ghosts and demons in his house, an Edwardian semi he shares with his mother. Crispin is a bespectacled, balding, middle-aged nebbish, a classic mixture of reticence and over-confidence with no social skills. Tom Bonnington only seems to have a couple of short films to his credit but, by golly, he throws himself magnificently into the role of this cheerfully awkward loner.
The first half of the film has Eileen spend time with Crispin, before her two associates arrive the next day. There is an assumption throughout that the elderly, unseen Mrs Crispin is the key to whatever is happening. We all assume there’s a Mrs Bates thing going on – and maybe there is, maybe there isn’t (no spoilers).
But here’s the thing. The actual plot is of secondary importance here. Watching Mr Crispin, the phrase that popped into my noggin ran thus: this film has the same casual attitude towards narrative coherence that one finds in the works of, for example, Jean Rollin. And indeed, the credits reveal that some of the interstitial shots that pop up frequently but irregularly have indeed been lifted, with permission from Salvation Films, from Shiver of the Vampires. What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a ‘Dalyade’.
Things happen but it would be naive to expect them to fit together in a completely logical way. You just have to hang on for the ride and see where the film is going. There are a couple of lengthy flashbacks: one to Simon and Seb exorcising a possessed woman tied to a bed, and one in which Eileen searches a seaside town for Seb who is, I think, planning to commit suicide by swimming out to sea because of his alcoholism. Or something.
Mr Crispin is utterly bonkers and ridiculously entertaining. I will acknowledge that someone coming to it cold would dismiss it out of hand, not least because the budget seems to be about what one would normally pay for a decent fish and chip supper. But you and I are not coming to it cold, are we? We’re coming to it as acolytes and fans of Dame Eileen Daly.
Here is the secret of Eileen’s success. She comes across as a kooky goth chick, but underneath that she is the most normal, down-to-Earth girl you could hope to meet. It’s not an act as such, it’s more a persona, but then Eileen is the sort of lady who would screech with laughter if you accused her of cultivating a persona. She plays on-screen ghost-hunter Eileen wonderfully straight here, with lots of sidelong glances to camera and the occasional exasperated whisper of “What the fuck?”.
After many years of acting in motion pictures of – shall we say – wildly varying quality, Eileen branched out into making her own movies at the end of the 2010s. For this first one she is co-credited with someone named ‘Lindsey S’ as writer, director, producer and editor. A gentleman named Carlos Dittborn Calejas is credited as DoP, which reminds me that the conceit of whether this is being shot for a putative TV show comes and goes with gay abandon throughout the film. Some of the camera-work is what they call diegetic, ie.acknowledging that there is an actual camera (which is not the same as breaking the fourth wall) and a further subset of that actually has ‘REC’ and a battery symbol in the corners. But at no point is there any acknowledgement of an actual cameraman. This is not unique to low budget films; for example the Borat films do exactly the same schtick and it is a whole subgenre of sitcom including things like The Office and Parks and Recreation.
So anyway, there are a few recognisable names in the credits. Dan Brownlie (Three’s a Shroud, Serial Kaller) gets ‘additional camera’ while the legend that is Jason Impey gets ‘additional editing and colour grading’. Layla Randle-Conde, who was in some of Philip Gardiner’s early features including The Stone and Cam Girl, plays ‘The Scary Lady’.
If you love microbudget, wildly enthusiastic British indies as much as I do, if you wonder what Jean Rollin would be doing if he was still alive and preferred the sands of Swanage to Calais beach, if you just have 80 minutes burning a hole in your calendar, you could do much worse than take a gander at Mr Crispin. It’s available to rent on Redemption TV, or you can pick it up on DVD anywhere that Eileen sets up her stall.
