Hiker Meat and Rough Cut: The Art of Making a Film That Never Existed

How do you explain the unique eccentricity of Hiker Meat, Jamie Shovelin's latest creative enterprise which is currently showcasing at the Cornerhouse in the form of an exhibition and a film, the latter entitled Rough Cut?

Well, it goes a bit like this. Imagine the only cars you liked were luxury cars but rather than build a new one you wanted to create a luxury car that never existed. But you wouldn't create a completely new luxury car you'd just recreate the bits that fascinated you the most, perhaps a walnut and rosewood dashboard (Jaguar), the finest hand crafted Parthenon-styled radiator grille (Rolls Royce) or a hand stitched driver's seat upholstered in the softest calf skin imaginable (Bentley). It would be a master class exploring the craft behind some iconic elements of the best luxury cars ever.

Now transfer this creative process to the horror film genre and you get my drift. Jamie's fantastic creative conceit is to deconstruct some of the key elements of the best of low budget slasher celluloid horror and re-examine every aspect of their aesthetic by recreating them in his own vision.

Rough Cut, and its supporting exhibition, documents the development of the project and its entourage of actors, film crew, sound technicians and set builders, all of whom head en masse to Grizedale in the Lake District. Here, their mission is to recreate a film that never existed by happily drawing upon a plethora of references to over 1,500 film clips from a portfolio of exploitation films produced in the 60s, 70s and 80s that have established the horror genre as more than just a cult, but a filmic language all of its own.

My initial reaction to the whole enterprise was that perhaps this was all a bit self-indulgent, too considered and aware of itself. However, as the film unfolds you begin to realise that Shovelin's forensic approach to understanding the components that make this particular horror genre so compelling is a powerful journey of creative self discovery, and an invaluable resource for film goers and filmmakers alike. The power and the validity of the project come from its obsessive re-examination of the whole process.

Although we never get to see a complete film there is an outline framework of a plot which provides the context in which to explore a range of elements essential to a classic horror film such as location, sound effects, costume, plot development, camera angles, dialogues and the all-important primal scream.

In this instance the plot revolves around hitchhiking girls picked up by truck drivers who lead them to what seems like a utopian freethinking university summer camp (ripe with the possibilities of copious amounts of sex, drink and drugs) whereupon they become victim to man eating monsters. We're talking mid-1970s, hot pants and skimpy tops for the girls and college sweats, jeans and sneakers for the boys. We're also talking fun lovin' California, as re-imagined in the Lake District. Sounds implausible? Shovelin's artistry and filmic forensics make it truly convincing, softly anarchic and occasionally ironic.

What I really enjoyed were the various genre points of reference that helped give creative steer to the execution of each element under examination, not least the final scene where the two protagonists flee from an exploding house. The house in question is based on the iconic Bates Motel from Psycho, remodelled in a Lake District landscape and blown up by carefully controlled ballistics. Pan out from this scene to a 1970s Chevy heading down the desert highway with a menacing sense of foreboding and you have Hiker Meat as re-imagined by Shovelin and his team doing their craft 70 miles north of the Cornerhouse.

In the end, the plot is largely insignificant as we only ever see fragments of it and its promotional trailer. Nevertheless, what is so enjoyable is the way every detail of each component is scrutinised to the point of perfection. Which brings to mind two famous quotes by French director Jean-Luc Godard, who said “every story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order”. He also wisely said that it wasn't the devil but “god” that was in the detail.

Audacious in concept and, yes, occasionally ironic and self-knowing, Rough Cut the film and Hiker Meat the exhibition are fine examples of adventurous and experimental art commissioning which, thanks to the vision of the Cornerhouse, enables the likes of Jamie Shovelin to help us revisit the niche genre of exploitation B-movies.

Take it as seriously as you want or, like Shovelin and his fictitious Italian film director Jesus Rinzoli, laugh at the madness of it all.

Words: Tom Warman
Images: courtesy of Cornerhouse

The exhibition continues until 21 April.

¡VIVA! Festival 2013 @ Cornerhouse

This month The Cornerhouse plays host to the 19th ¡Viva! Spanish and Latin American Film Festival, transporting audiences away from the grim, grey streets of Manchester and into a world filled with the spice and colour of Spanish culture.



From the get-go, however, ¡Viva! demonstrates how Spanish and Latin American identity is made up of much more than just pure fun and frivolity. Yoshua Okón’s video installation, Octopus (2011), in Gallery 1 reminds us of the incredibly dark undercurrent that has plagued life in Guatemala since its civil war in the 1980s.

The performance itself is a re-enactment of this civil war, with the performers made up of those who were forced to fight. There is one major difference, however. The old battleground of Guatemala is instead replaced by a new one: the carpark of a Home Depot in LA. The war itself claimed over 200,000 victims, most of whom were Mayan Indians, in an attempt by Guatemala’s military leaders to eliminate the leftwing guerrilla uprising that threatened the existence of the country’s rightwing dictatorship.



Rather than use graphic imagery to draw attention to the sheer barbarity of the civil war, Okón uses satire to demonstrate how these atrocities were not only ignored by the Western world, but actively promoted. Okón’s positioning of the piece in a Home Depot, a physical embodiment of American capitalist society, points to the controversial relationship between Guatemala and America.

Reagan’s administration in America helped support the oppressive totalitarian regime in Guatemala by approving the sale of $6.36 million worth of military arms to its genocidal dictator, Efrain Rios Montt. Okón explores this through a layer irony, which is achieved using a complex system of camera angles and perspectives, projected into an almost 360 degree environment, completely immersing you in the action.



The accompanying piece in the gallery, US (2005), has a similar tone of to it. It is a single-channel four minute animation which consists of a solid gold monument of the letters ‘US’ towering above Washington, DC. The letters revolve on the spot and appear to act as some sort of shrine to either the American dream or corporate greed, the difference between the two being perhaps too close to separate.

The premiere screening of the festival’s launch night was ¡Atraco! (which translates as Hold-Up!), directed by Eduard Cortés. The film explores the real life events which led to an attempted jewellery shop robbery in Madrid during the 1950s. In an elaborate plot, akin to that of the Ocean’s Eleven series, two Argentine Peron loyalists attempt to steal back jewels which had been previously pawned to fund their leader’s time in exile. The reason for wanting the jewels was that they now risked falling into the hands of the Spanish dictator General Franco’s wife, having been previously owned by Argentina’s first lady Eva Peron. Still with me?



Despite its complexity, the film is undoubtedly an audience pleaser, with the two robbers in question truly stealing the show (cough, no pun intended). Guillermo Francella and Nicolás Cabré perform their roles as Merello, the exasperated veteran, and Miguel, hapless sidekick, down to a tee. In fact, the best moments of the film come when both characters argue and engage with each other in a quick-fire comedic way, re-enforcing their roles as experienced pro and naive first timer.

One of the funniest running gags throughout the film was how both of these Argentines managed to wrestle with the task of pretending to be Spanish in order to not arouse suspicion. In one scene, in which Miguel tries to rehearse the robbery, Merello tells him to be more Spanish and shout “bollocks” when he walks into the store. This, of course, goes about as well as you can expect, provoking a greater amount of laughter than it does terror.

Ultimately, it’s the fine balance between comedy and tragedy which makes ¡Atraco! such a captivating film to watch. Through his direction, Cortés has managed to create a film which is warm, charming and enjoyable, and yet also makes us question the true meaning of loyalty, family, friendship and brotherhood.

Words: Joseph Barratt.
Images: courtesy of The Cornerhouse.

The 19th ¡Viva! Spanish and Latin American Film Festival continues at The Cornerhouse until Sunday 24 March, 2013.

Arts, Music & Events Preview, January 2011 (Part One)

If you’ve been consulting your Gregorian calendar lately then you’ll no doubt have spotted a couple of things. Namely, we’re slowly rolling into another year and this preview feature is a few days overdue. The former significantly more obvious than the latter, perhaps, but both indicative of the sleepy nature of Januarys in general.

That’s not to say there isn’t anything to sink your creative teeth into this month. Oldham Street’s refurbished Castle Hotel hosts Welsh linguists Colorama following their session on the airwaves for Marc Riley’s 6music show – all this evening, Wednesday 5th. And later on, Now Wave’s DJs pick up where they left off in 2010, spinning their tips for 2011's buzz bands to fill the Deaf Institute floor.


Saturday 8th brings another Carefully Planned All-Dayer, albeit a rescheduled one due to pre-Xmas snow. That’ll also take place at the in-demand Castle Hotel with eight more hand-picked musicians from the world of indie-folk. For a more chilled affair that evening, the electronic types at This City Is Ours continue their monthly slot at An Outlet, with tunes selected by Anytime, Blood Boy, LSN and Borland DJs.

The Art Corner launches a new exhibition with a preview night on Monday 10th, capturing the zeitgeist with an artistic interpretation of everybody’s favourite fad, ‘austerity Britain’. They’ve called it Cuts & Grazes, roped in a palette of artists and set an end date at 30th of this month.


Onto the world of film, the curtain comes down on the New British Cinema Quarterly’s run at the Cornerhouse on Tuesday 11th with a screening of brilliantlove, which stars local Manc actor Liam Browne in the role of a besotted character named Manchester. Produced by North Eastern champions of outsider cinema Pinball Films, the film has already been met by independent cinema kudos and an impressive-looking soundtrack includes Sol Seppy, Wild Beasts, David Holmes and James Yorkston.

There’s a seminar worthy of your time on Wednesday 12th (you might want to double-check the date - I've read conflicting info) if you’re prone to a whinge about the frequency of buses. The GMITA (Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority) will discuss their forthcoming budget at the Town Hall, but to attend you have to book yourself in by Friday 7th.

Islington Mill bursts into life on Thursday 13th with a trio of alt-rockers in the form of Charles Hayward, Barberos and Gnod.

Over the weekend of 15th and 16th, an alternative political group currently known as ‘Network X’ will hold discussions with the aim of homogenising the activities of similar-minded groups, both local and national. Expect to be involved with planning strategies, defining the shared points of a political ideology and structuring methods of achieving aims. If you’d like to make your voice heard then that’s the time to do it. Contact them for details.


Finally, Chorlton Arts Festival may seem a fair way off in the distant future as yet (19th-30th May), but they’re planning events as I type and will continue to accept submissions for ideas until Monday 17th. Forms can be downloaded here and for more info the contact is Philip.

Words: Ian Pennington