Zaki (Nayef Rashed) falls prey to the violence of Britain’s drinking culture when he is accidentally killed outside his own kebab shop. Shortly after his death, his son Salah, played by Ziad Abaza, descends into madness. To the same tune as Sweeney Todd, he murders any intoxicated hooligan foolish enough to cross his path and serves their remains up with a side of chips. All in the vain hope that his twisted form of vigilantism can help clean up Britain’s alcohol, vomit and urine-soaked streets.
Serial killers and social commentaries… Is this what we are crying out for? A culling? Some sort of swift eradication of everything that is ugly about our country? Wouldn’t cities, towns and villages the world over like the same for themselves? The UK’s booze problem is certainly something to think about. At one point, it was the first thing that Europe didn’t like about us. Although now, it may be the second… It’s also a double-standard. It’s hard to know where to smoke these days, and yet look at the atrocities that spill out of our pubs and clubs over the weekend. Surely there must be someone who can save us? Well there is, and his name is –
Salah’s silent intellectual type is the perfect demeanour for a psychopath that’s just waiting to boil and bubble over. Didn’t you hear? It’s always the quiet ones. Here Abaza plays Salah’s madness through the eyes, particularly at breaking point when the gears in his mind finally shift, while his more human side comes through in the sadness of his body language as he wears his internal battle on his sleeve.
As for Salah’s victims, they are racist, they are abusive, they are downright disgusting…but they’re also drunk. Could it just be the drink talking? Are they actually part of the problem? Well, Salah is insane, so none of this matters. As director Dan Pringle explains in one of the 3 short behind-the-scenes featurettes on the DVD extras, a mind like Salah’s will not feel pity or understanding for the people he murders. His mission may seem noble to himself, and to us – to some degree, but it’s just a smokescreen for the killer inside him to exist alongside his everyday self.
LAST WORDS:
A horror movie with something to say. Something a little more original. That’s more like it. Mixing gore with drama, comedy, cannibalism and even a little bit of romance – K-Shop is an interesting tale of a madman who wanted to make a difference. Despite the Sweeney Todd analogy, I found it quite refreshing.
Serial killers and social commentaries… Is this what we are crying out for? A culling? Some sort of swift eradication of everything that is ugly about our country? Wouldn’t cities, towns and villages the world over like the same for themselves? The UK’s booze problem is certainly something to think about. At one point, it was the first thing that Europe didn’t like about us. Although now, it may be the second… It’s also a double-standard. It’s hard to know where to smoke these days, and yet look at the atrocities that spill out of our pubs and clubs over the weekend. Surely there must be someone who can save us? Well there is, and his name is –
Salah’s silent intellectual type is the perfect demeanour for a psychopath that’s just waiting to boil and bubble over. Didn’t you hear? It’s always the quiet ones. Here Abaza plays Salah’s madness through the eyes, particularly at breaking point when the gears in his mind finally shift, while his more human side comes through in the sadness of his body language as he wears his internal battle on his sleeve.
As for Salah’s victims, they are racist, they are abusive, they are downright disgusting…but they’re also drunk. Could it just be the drink talking? Are they actually part of the problem? Well, Salah is insane, so none of this matters. As director Dan Pringle explains in one of the 3 short behind-the-scenes featurettes on the DVD extras, a mind like Salah’s will not feel pity or understanding for the people he murders. His mission may seem noble to himself, and to us – to some degree, but it’s just a smokescreen for the killer inside him to exist alongside his everyday self.
LAST WORDS:
A horror movie with something to say. Something a little more original. That’s more like it. Mixing gore with drama, comedy, cannibalism and even a little bit of romance – K-Shop is an interesting tale of a madman who wanted to make a difference. Despite the Sweeney Todd analogy, I found it quite refreshing.
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