Directed by Bruce Robinson • 1988 • United Kingdom, United States
Starring Richard E. Grant, Rachel Ward, Richard Wilson
Writer-director Bruce Robinson and star Richard E. Grant, the cracked comic geniuses behind the cult favorite WITHNAIL AND I, reteamed for this diabolically dark satire of runaway capitalism in Margaret Thatcher–era England. Grant gives a virtuosically crazed performance as an ambitious advertising exec whose latest assignment—devising a campaign for a pimple cream—has him on the edge of a nervous breakdown. When he sprouts an enormous boil on his shoulder—one that not only talks but has evil ambitions of its own—a twisted battle of wills ensues. With fantastically fleshy body-horror effects and flourishes of gonzo surrealism, this tour de force of verbal jousting and physical comedy is a caustic Jekyll-and-Hyde tale for the greed-is-good 1980s.
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