Appearing in 1985 The Comic was the first film directed and written by  Cornwall based Richard Driscoll- who went onto direct by quirkily genre fare like Grindhouse 2wo and When The Devil Rides Out- not the Hammer one of course, but a 2017 cheapie. He also directed a few docs including one about the Beatles, as well as acting in a fair few brit soaps & drama’s like Eastenders, The Bill, and London’s Burning. The directing here is decidedly ropy & lo-fi, with much of the film having a very stagey/ set vibe to it. Pacing wise I found the whole thing really did drag on & on- but it only has a runtime of just over a fairly standard  one & a half hours.

The film centers around orange dyed mulleted Sam Coex( Steve Monroe)- who is a somewhat unbalanced man who is determined to become a comic- say a little like the recent Joker film, but with little or no acting chops, atmosphere, or depth. He is very eager to play in a local club, but they already have a comic- so he decides to deal with the issue himself. Along the way he gets involved with the club's stripper, carries out lots of dull conversations , gets involved with lots of moody-at-times slow-mo dry ice footage, having encounters with the states police force- with sprinkles of wacky-but cheap look imagery and very bright red blood. Out of all the cast Monroe is probably the best actor- though that’s not saying much as he moves from contrived twitchy, trying-to-be odd/ sinister- but comes off obnoxious, or just generally bad hammy-ness. I guess if you like the idea of 1980s very low-budget grim noir with moments dystopian drama, bumbling horror with lots of dry iced 1980’s music video vibes - then you’ll probably like what we have here, but it really wasn’t for me.

Moving onto this new Blu Ray- and for a clear low-budget largely set based film it looks as good as you can expect really. Moving onto the extras, and we get around forty-nine-minute commentary from writer & director Richard Driscoll- this is down-to-earth & fairly frank- as at one point he admits he only got 25% of the film they wanted. Over the track, he talks about the film's financial issues, how one of the film actors left after a short time, comments on certain scenes, and points out interesting extras/ points. Next, we get a seventeen-minute on-camera interview with the lead actor- here he discusses how he got the part in the film & how it grew to be a lead role, his working man's entertainment past that helped him build the character, and of course the bright orange hair. He also talks about that it was all mainly filmed in a hanger in Cardiff, with Victorian sets from another film. Lastly, we get a new trailer from the film- which nicely focuses the more weird/ off the wall parts of the film.

It’s certainly nice to see Arrow uncovering more low-budget/ lo-fi 1980’s fare like The Comic, and once again with this release, they’ve given their normal care, love & passion to this Blu Ray. As I said in my introduction this is a real oddity- so as a result, I’d approach it with caution- as I think this is very much a love or hate situation, but I very much fall down into the latter…so not for me, but it could be for you.