Ideas you pick up at the DIY store - Shallow Grave (1994)

Although filmed before Trainspotting, its release was after and rode on the back of the trippy UK dance scene of the ‘90’s, of which I was a part of, albeit a decade later. Director, Danny Boyle was a shining light, opening up Great Britain and showing its dirtiest, grimiest sides for the entire world to see. Big names here, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston, Keith Allen & Kerry Fox before they went all Hollywood.

Three friends decide they need a flat mate to help pay the rent so they hold auditions and find a few weirdos including Keith Allen. On his first night he makes quite an impression; he drinks lots and cracks a few jokes then the next day they find him naked, dead and naked on his bed. Just when they're about to call the police they go through his bag, as you do, and find piles and piles of cash. Too good to be true, they decide to keep the money and not call the police. This does leave them with one problem though; they need to get rid of the body. How? Well, they take him to the woods after visiting their local DIY shop, and chop him up. Christopher Eccleston's character draws the short straw and has this honour, much to his distress. Little did the friends know, this would send his already fragile character, over the edge.

They try not to but eventually they crack and spend some of the money. This is when someone comes looking for it and they start to turn on each other. The friends really did look and act like they’d been flat mates for years with their inside jokes and banter which turned in to sinister sibling-like sniping. I can’t walk round a DIY store now without imagining what tools I’d need to dismember a body. Yes dear, it’s true. Last weekend when we were walking through B&Q looking for paint I was in fact eyeing up the hacksaws and hammers.

Unlikely and brutal, coupled with the iconic dance soundtrack, it was and still is a wonder to behold. I keep harping on about the music, but it’s not just dance. We have great incidental and the use of Andy Williams’ Happy Heart at the end is pure theatre, highlighting the film’s humour and shock value.

The honesty in the characters is both awe inspiring and awkward. If it was down to you or your best friend to dismember a dead body you’d be hoping your best friend drew the short straw, wouldn’t you? If you had to knock the teeth out of the dead mans head you would vomit while you did it, wouldn’t you? This film showed that when it comes down to it, no matter how close you are and what you’ve been through together, no matter the promises you made, when it comes down to it people lie, cheat and kill and get away with it.