Left to right: "I'm probably going to have an asthma attack and no-one cares", "I think this is a gift from above", "I wonder if it'd be too hard to phase these guys out of my life".

Cast: Jack Davenport, Dexter Fletcher, Angus Deayton, Richard Stanley
Director: Simon Ubstell
Screenwriter: Simon Ubstell
Rating: 15

The enigmatic, Blair Witch style title cards at the beginning of That Deadwood Feeling, guardedly tell of how it became ‘a faint echo of the movie that once almost existed.’ Sometime in 2002 after filming had finished all the negatives went missing under mysterious circumstances, what remains and is now available on DVD had to be rescued from low quality VHS recordings that were for the initial edit. The original negatives have never been recovered. But this isn’t art dressed up as real life, but the brutal truth behind a film that tangibly doesn’t exist.

Given that the overreaching storyline is that of an unrealised film project told through the autobiographical and awkward trials of three idle yet aspiring filmmakers, they are perhaps right to muse that ‘the film was tempting fate from the beginning.’

The (nearly) finished product is every bit as captivating as the story behind it. It defies clear-cut classification but in essence That Deadwood Feeling is a black comic psychological thriller, with much of the script comprising of spiky parody and rumination on the film industry’s fringe. The three central characters all offer excellent performances, Jack Davenport (Pirates of The Caribbean) as the acerbically droll and self-important Jack (the same character is unfathomably played by Angus Deayton in the off kilter flash-forwards), Demetri Gositsas as his detached and self-absorbed American cohort, Frank, and Dexter Fletcher (Lock Stock…) completes the trio as wannabe ‘player’ Mike, each being given ample dialogue with which to tease out industry in-jokes, many directed directly at the plot of Deadwood itself via acerbic reflection on the process.

In the absence of any movie ideas the three conspire to steal the life story of mysterious, dark clad weirdo played by Richard Stanley (director of cult gore horror flick Dust Devil and Hardware), for use as their ‘commercial film’ project. As increasingly bizarre events unfold around them, a red dressed woman (Ivana Horvat), discussed as a metaphorical and illusory plot device by the three, watches over. Meanwhile evolves among interspersions of aesthetic snippets of London’s arcane outskirts and highly disposable advice on filmmaking from the unearthly movie financier Larry, played by original Starsky, David Soul.

It is a great shame that events surrounding That Deadwood Feeling denied it a cinematic release, as it possesses all the best qualities of a true cult classic. While most readily appealing to fans of Donnie Darko or David Lynch style films with it’s bizarre visual glitches and unconventional narrative, the layers of crisp script and storyline of comical horror twists laid on top, ensure it is a smooth and easy watch for anyone. The ending leaving enough said to be satisfied but plenty unanswered to ponder, not least, where could those 130 cans of original film have gone?

Special features: ‘Making of’ featurette and novelty, ‘the un-making of’ along with deleted scenes and interview with Richard Stanley.

That Deadwood Feeling is out now on DVD and Blu-ray via the Electric Theatre Company

By David Ellis