As if to underline the intellectual redundancy of the recent Colin (2008; dir. Marc Price) – reviewed here – this is an equally homegrown affair from helmer Murphy, the Portsmouth-based king of low-budget British films. Shot on the now extinct Super 8mm format, the film suffers from its bargain basement sets and props, and is little saved by its low-rent actors, some of whom are incapable of playing a scene without laughing. Murphy has no skill behind the camera, unable to even hide the film’s back garden origins with decent compositions or judicial editing.

What this film does bring to the conversation, however, is further evidence that film-making at such a low, almost unfunded level, needs to aspire to a different set of cinematic values than those set by mainstream, exploitative Hollywood product. As with Colin, this film and its makers are too eager to copy the empty-headed, manipulative practices that have had a stranglehold on British cinema since at least the early 1980s, instead of attempting to explore other possibilities, that may, but not necessarily, stem from their surrounding social, cultural and political landscapes.

Death Run is not at the IMDb