TUMMY MONSTER is a wildly inventive psychological thriller set entirely in a Glasgow tattoo parlour over less than 24 hours. Ciaran Lyons’ directorial debut feature is UNCUT GEMS by way of Glasgow, using its sense of confinement to build to a peak of anxiety and tense release that will stick with you long after the end.
Tales (Lorn Macdonald) is alone in his tattoo shop at night, unable to press ‘send’ on an apologetic text to his partner when he’s disturbed by the arrival of an international music star (Orlando Norman) and Truth (Michael Akinsilure), his distrustful handler. Though initially happy to tattoo the anonymous star, Tales’ anxiety about the encounter gradually grows until a simple request for a selfie turns the night into a game of psychological warfare.
Lyons and cinematographer David Liddell make the most of the film’s single location, drenching the shop in a mix of harsh neon lighting, deep shadows, and continual vape clouds, accentuating the characters’ psychological torment. The contrast between light and shade reflects the film’s tone, balancing a genuine sense of dread against laugh-out-loud moments of black comedy built on Lorn Macdonald’s excellent lead performance. Macdonald brings a sense of Glaswegian forthrightness and exasperation that is an excellent foil for the absurdity of the situation in which Tales finds himself.
“The contrast between light and shade reflects the film’s tone, balancing a genuine sense of dread against laugh-out-loud moments of black comedy built on Lorn Macdonald’s excellent lead performance.”
As the two central characters in this claustrophobic chamber piece, Macdonald and Norman play off each other terrifically, imbuing the drama with realism through their dialogue and performances. Through the psychological ebbs and flows that turn a childish game of chicken into something much darker, both actors give their characters a sense of hidden depths coming to the surface, explicitly in the case of Tales, who can’t keep his hot mess to himself and more subtly in the case of Norman’s enigmatic popstar. Though Macdonald’s performance carries the emotional weight of the film, Norman pushes the psychological horror into something more metaphysical, gradually transforming himself into a primordial agent-of-chaos, a trickster god sent by some malevolent force as cosmic punishment for Tales’ sins.
Even as the film’s anxiety builds to its UNCUT GEMS-like peak and events spiral out of Tales’ control, Ciaran Lyons confidently steers the film, ensuring that it never loses sight of the characters and keeps the themes of psychological warfare and rebirth firmly in view. TUMMY MONSTER is a short, sharp shock like the first prick of a tattoo needle, and it’ll etch itself onto you in a way that sticks.